Sigma sees cable embracing IPTV

The cable industry is being pushed to adopt IPTV to enable more channels across its broadband pipe, according to Ken Lowe, vice president of strategic marketing at Sigma Designs, which makes media processors for IPTV set-top boxes. As early as 2010, cable companies will be deploying hybrid systems that enable IP streaming of video within the home, Lowe said.
Sigma has demonstrated a reference design that can enable a hybrid gateway product that supports traditional QAM technology for standard cable TV, next-gen cable technologies DOCSIS 3.0 and Tru2Way, and IPTV, Lowe said. “In the gateway, using software, you convert all digital video to an IPTV stream, which can then be sent to any thin client device at a TV set,” Lowe said. “The gateway device is more expensive than existing set-top boxes, but the tradeoff is that the thin client boxes at the rest of the TVs will be cheaper. This allows you to get to both worlds, to embrace the new world of IPTV with the reassurance of [existing cable technology] until you are completely ready to switch.”

The hybrid approach would enable cable companies to add new channels via IPTV as telcos now do, Lowe said, and take advantage of the superior bandwidth of a cable company’s hybrid fiber-coax network has versus a telco’s fiber-copper network.

“Cable and telco have opposite challenges moving forward,” Lowe said. “Cable has a tremendous amount of bandwidth, but they have discrete channels that consume that bandwidth. The telcos have only a limited amount of bandwidth they can get through the last mile, being twisted pair. However they have an IP video delivery mechanism which allows you to deliver an unlimited number of channels – you just can’t access them at the same time.”
Lowe expects to see field trials of the hybrid solutions by mid-2010 and deployments by the end of that year. The hybrid approach will support delivery of over-the-top Internet video to the TV through a direct IP connection, Lowe said.

Where cable has to compete with fiber-to-the-home, such as in Verizon’s territory or those of independent telcos such as SureWest Communications, there is even greater pressure to deliver more content through the existing HFC systems, Lowe said. Cable companies will have to invest capex to upgrade headends to support DOCSIS 3.0 and Tru2Way and to put hybrid gateways and new set-top boxes into the home, Lowe said, but that investment will be required to stay competitive with telcos delivering IPTV.