IPTV World Forum: Is IPTV too little, too late?

CHICAGO – Consumers are not willing to wait for IPTV to reach perfection. They are looking to get the experience – the connectivity, information and entertainment – today, whether the service providers are ready or not. Sanjay Mewada, vice president of strategy for NetCracker, warned IPTV World Forum attendees of this today, suggesting that IPTV may be too little, too late.

Almost 40% of consumers in the mass market watch some form of television content on a device other than the TV in a typical week, Mewada pointed out. Because customers can view content in other forms, there is an increasingly prevalent fear that IPTV may be inadequate as a dominant source of differentiation for service providers. If the telcos can’t create a unique user experience, defined by interactivity, customization and quality, they will be left behind, Mewada said.

“The kind of storage and capability around the corner will fundamentally change how we access entertainment and information,” he said. “By focusing on just making the value chain perfect, service providers may well be standing as the train leaves the station.”

Service syndication could be service providers’ saving grace in the path to differentiation, according to Mewada. Separating the service layer from the network layer – a foreign concept to most telcos – can enable them to exchange and expose the service elements to their content partners. In doing so, the service can move beyond a one-way model focused purely on aggregating content and delivering it to the consumer to a two-way model that encourages interactivity and personalization.

The process of service syndication begins with separating the services from the network – “the fundamental guiding principle if service providers actually want to create service elements that can be separated from the underlying infrastructure to be exposed to partners in unique service bundles,” Mewada said. When the two are distinct, service providers can select network attributes and assignments. Step two in service syndication is to begin exposing the service elements to partners, so they can start creating applications and user interfaces.

“IPTV still doesn’t do this today,” Mewada added. “There is limited interaction between content and end users. Step three to reach IPTV’s potential is to become a portal for communication using television, computer or any device connected to IPTV, so you can start creating unique services.”

Inherent in this process of service syndication is the role that NetCracker Technology plays. The OSS provider today introduced upgrades to its IPTV platform that build on its services ecosystem approach to IPTV. The upgrades are designed to take telcos from initial deployments to large-scale initiatives through focusing on enabling just-in-time fulfillment, home network provisioning and the use of the TV as an ordering portal. NetCracker will also provide fault management data to understand service dependencies and deliver end-to-end assurance and centralized management of content catalogs, customer offers and correlation between customer profiles.