IPTV realized

What had been seen by many as a snail's pace of IPTV application development over the past few years has now accelerated significantly, culminating with the International Consumer Electronics Show in January.

I, for one, have been disappointed in the lack of differentiation opportunities provided by IPTV, but real progress is on the horizon.

CES introduced new applications that may finally provide IPTV operators with real ammunition against their digital broadcast satellite (DBS) and cable competitors. Announcements from Microsoft, Verizon and others highlight upcoming applications that appear to take advantage of IPTV's inherent communications functionality and content availability.

Microsoft created considerable buzz by announcing the transformation of its Xbox game consoles to IPTV set-top boxes. The implications are considerable given its embedded base of millions of consoles. Most interesting is Microsoft's discussion about Xbox Live applications interfacing with IPTV.

Applications, including chat, presence and messaging, are being integrated with the TV experience and may prove compelling — and are not yet available to DBS and cable subscribers. Also of note is Microsoft's insistence that these and other services like them will only be available through service provider partnerships.

Time will tell, but the introduction of these enhancements from such a high-profile player may accelerate interest and potential adoption across the entire IPTV landscape.

Verizon, while technically not an IPTV operator, is leveraging IP-based services for upcoming enhancements, including remote DVR programming and enhanced video search. Verizon is growing its leadership in whole-house DVR functionality to include remote programming via broadband and wireless connections. While such features have not yet proved useful or even desired, introducing them shows potential.

Such features won't provide ammunition for long. Limited remote DVR programming is all ready, and the forthcoming wireless joint ventures between Sprint and some cable companies should provide similar wireless capabilities.

Much of the development in IPTV applications is being driven by these large players. So where does that leave the pioneers of IPTV in the U.S., the independent telcos? It leaves them in familiar territory: somewhat disadvantaged by limited scale and scope.

The IOC sector will need to leverage its collective scale to help bring innovation and competitive ammunition to its marketplace. That's because leveraging aggregators and consortiums, both which help level the playing field, influence vendors to pay attention. The alternative is to hope that these and future applications trickle their way down to individual telcos — a less than desirable proposition. After all, the promise of IPTV should be realized by all. Every IPTV operator will need all the ammunition they can get.
Bernie Arnason
managing partner at Pivot Media bernie@askpivot.com