U.S. IPTV operators slow to install

North America has the highest overall total average installation times for IPTV, coming in around 5.16 hours in-person, according to a study published this week of the top 60 operators in Asia, Europe and North America. The annual IPTV Home Networking Strategies report, written by Multimedia Research Group and distributed by Research and Markets, found that installations in the United States are above the overall average of 3.79 person-hours for installation from curb to the third set-top box (STB). For one STB homes, the average was 2.25 person-hours, with the total time increasing less than an hour for each additional STB.

Gary Schultz, principal analyst at Multimedia Group Research, said that the discrepancy in the U.S. can be attributed to the operator’s newness to the market compounded by customer’s desire to do more. While the North American install times are coming down, most operators are offering triple play services of voice, video and data or, at a minimum, a dual play of high-speed data and video, which adds to the overall install time.

“Another thing that increases the time is if you use wireline versus 802.11 or powerline, it is going to take you longer to set it up,” Schultz said. “Europe tends to use more powerline type networking, which means their install numbers are lower. Also, level of experience – how long have you been doing it? If you are an operator that’s just starting out, your times are going to be way up there. If you’ve been doing this for three to six years as a lot of these European and some Asian installations have been doing, that is going to be knocking your times down, because you’ll get a lot better at it.”

First place in installation speed went to Europe, with average times around 2.87 person-hours. Further, the most popular home networking technology claiming 34% of respondents was HomePNA, which also had the highest overall average installation times at 4.47 person-hours. The technology ties together both the AV and PC network so it tends to be more complex, which according to Schultz may actually be its biggest competitive advantage in the long run.

“The debate between lowering your OPEX and controlling the network from the perspective of the operator is an important strategic one,” he said. “If you install a basic network over which you as the operator have control, you can actually deliver quality of service to the end user where it is predictable and manageable and noticeable to the consumer. So, it is an investment that an operator makes that will and should payoff in terms of better quality, fewer customer service calls, improved loyalty by the customer, etc. So, keeping your initial OPEX down is a good goal to have, but you don’t want to be pennywise and pound-foolish when it comes to your long-term quality of service.”

Many operators included in the study used a combination of the two networking technologies, including HomePlug – typically used in Europe, Moca 802.11n, primarily from Ruckus, or HPNA. Out of all the home networking technologies operators used, HomePlug had the lowest install time, requiring about a half hour of face time.

According to the IPTV operator respondents, the best practices they use to reduce install times and improve QoS most often included using standard methods and procedures, training and assigning proper technicians and reviewing the customer installation before leaving.

If long installation times are a possibility, it is something the customer should be made aware of, according to Phil Doriot, partner and head of the telecom practice at CFI Group. To avoid customer disillusionment around long installation times, he suggested better communicating to customers that the installation time may take time and why. As technology gets more complex, customers need more assistance and less confusion, he told Telephony in February. Schultz agreed that managing expectations is important, as is cross-training personnel, having floating experts immediately available to solve unexpected problems, keeping adequate inventory on hand and having a system for predicting what the install time will actually be and testing the home network before an operator even sends a crew out to do the install.

“It is a more complex operation, but we really think it pays off in the long haul because it gives a better launching pad for the relationship with the consumer,” Schultz said. “And remember, the operator doesn’t have a lot of face time with the consumer, but this is one of those critical times when the consumer is actually face to face with your representative as an operator, so you want to make sure it is a good experience.”

The survey, conducted to determine best practices to achieve shorter installation times while maintaining high QoS, included responses from 13 operators — six from North America, three from Asia and four from Europe. The respondents represented 4.85 million subscribers, about 35% of the global IPTV subscriber base.