Globalcomm: Juniper makes IPTV push

CHICAGO – Juniper Networks this week is launching a major IPTV push, to include both product announcements, a heavy focus on security and a partnership initiative to promote open networks.

Although not associated with the major IPTV deployments in North America, Juniper’s metro and edge technology is being deployed globally in some of the largest IPTV rollouts to date, including PCCW’s 400,000-user network in Hong Kong. The router-maker is now making a bid for IPTV attention by creating the Open IPTV and Multiplay Initiative, an ongoing effort designed to promote open interfaces, and introducing compliance of its E-series Broadband Services Router with key industry specifications that enable service delivery in a multivendor environment.

In doing so, Juniper is drawing a contrast between its approach and those of competitors such as Alcatel and Redback.

“We know that our competitors are making a lot of noise about their IPTV deployments,” said Shailesh Shukla, vice president of service provider marketing and partnerships for Juniper. “We have been working with carriers for a long time in this area. Right now, five of the top eight IPTV deployments in the world, according to PointTopic, are using Juniper intelligent edge equipment.”

At the heart of Juniper’s strategy is an open, multiservice IP network that enables IPTV but also other services, Shukla said. As part of this strategy, Juniper said its E-series Broadband Services Router is the first to comply with the DSL Forum’s TR-101 and Layer 2 Control Protocol (L2CP) specifications.

“An overlay networks for IPTV is not in the long-term strategic interests of the service providers,” he said. “What we have been helping customers to do is to build networks to support multi-play services.”

The Open IPTV and Multiplay Initiative features an open applications programming interface to Juniper’s SDX-300 Service Deployment System that enables content and application providers to create programming for IPTV that will drive customer interest and enable the telephone companies to differentiate their products from existing video networks. Juniper has tested the approach with eight partners, including IBM, Microsoft and SeaChange.

Analyst Tom Nolle, president of CIMI, sees Juniper’s strategy as a logical one, given the likelihood that IPTV ultimately won’t include broadcast channels. He believes Verizon’s FiOS strategy, which uses radio frequency channels to transmit standard cable TV programming and IPTV to do video-on-demand and other customized programming is a better model. Likewise, AT&T’s HomeZone offering, which uses Dish Networks’ satellite service to handle the broadcast channels, will win out over the LightSpeed model of doing everything over IPTV, Nolle said.

“Juniper is making an assumption that the U.S. carriers are going to decide not to deploy broadcast channels over IP--instead they will follow either the Verizon model or the HomeZone model,” Nolle said. “The IPTV arch that Juniper talks about is a smarter architecture than Alcatel. The problem here is that broadcast IP is not the right strategy. The problem with broadcast IP is that it forces enormous change in the access network. If you look at all the things you could do with the access network, IPTV tends to create a change in the traffic dynamic that is totally different from every other form of traffic. It requires you to put IP features in places where you wouldn’t need them. Alcatel puts more IP in the metro--there are security issues with that, operational issues with that, cost issues with that.”

As a result, Nolle believes, companies such as AT&T and BellSouth will rethink their IPTV strategy, and Juniper could be a big beneficiary.

Security is another part of the Juniper push. The company is introducing security for the upstream control channel of the IPTV network that prevents hackers from accessing the IPTV network by spoofing an IPTV set-top and potentially introducing denial of service (DOS) attacks on the network.

“I think it’s a no-brainer to assume that security becomes an important part of IP networks, especially as the IPTV client is talking directly to the network and asking the network to make changes, that is an exposure to DOS,” said Mark Seery, vice president of IP service infrastructure for Ovum-RHK.