On the panel at IPTV India 2009 on Friday, I began taking notes of the services that IPTV has to offer consumers. IPTV, or Internet Protocol Television, is believed to be the future of TV: content is streamed to homes via Internet Protocol, and the service allows users to interact with each other and via a return path, unlike DTH or digital cable. One premiss is that this interactivity will eventually allow users sitting at home to interact live with TV, and enable service providers to offer them a wider range of content.
The list of services currently on offer, however, doesn’t appear to be significantly different from what is being offered to DTH subscribers in India: Time Shift TV, Video on Demand and Pay Per View, though the library may be larger. Keep in mind that although it is illegal, users do download TV shows from the net – whether on their home or office connections. So video on demand isn’t going to be killer app, though Time Shift TV might work.
There are other services like Messaging, Classifieds, videos (called A-Tube) and iControl Mail which Aksh Optifibre is currently offering, but for a consumer who already has broadband, this is hardly a value add; certainly isn’t reason enough for me to switch to IPTV. In fact, IPTV does appear to be a limited – even restrictive – form of the Internet. So would I prefer that the TV be my access point to the Internet, or that the Internet be my access point to TV content? Quite frankly – the latter.
One reason for that, is the wider interactivity that the Internet allows, in comparison: while I have DTH or Digital Cable, I’m quite happy interacting with others using my PC or mobile, while simultaneously watching TV. You would know what I’m talking about, if you followed the discussion on Twitter (#IndiaVotes09) or Facebook as the election results in India unfolded, or even the matches during Indian Premier League, while simultaneously watching TV.
There is value in the coverage on TV, but people want to participate, and hence there is as much – if not more – value for users online. One solution for IPTV service providers would be to take their TV blinkers off and offer consumers a wider experience, with greater integration with the Internet, and leverage as much freedom to consumers as the Internet has to offer.
If there are almost 7 million DTH subscribers, and around 6 million broadband connections in India, I wonder how many DTH subscribers also have broadband connections. Airtel is no longer viewing IPTV as a mass market service, rather, as a premium service being offered to existing broadband consumers in metro cities. So why would a broadband consumer want a limited form of the Internet on his TV set?
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2 Comments until now.
1) That appears to be true as of today's operator, their status with the "interactive" services BUT it is a very narrow view of the technology and its capabilities.
2) While it is only fair to make a direct comparison of IPTV with DTH or digital cable, there are service differentiators which would prove the superiority of IPTV services over the other modes of TV delivery.
3) IPTV is certainly NOT promising to bring internet to the TV for the internet savvy and addicted population. It certainly does promise to bring the utility applications of the internet (be it ticket booking, information dissemination or transactional) to the population which is "not so net savvy" and "internet illiterate" at the touch of the remotes. The challenge lies in bringing these applications in a user-friendly manner to the IPTV platform – which is only a matter of time.
4) The broadband ( with or without internet access) numbers in India are growing at an enormous rate – projections from the govt and pvt. operators are 20 Million by 2010 and 40 million by 2012. These numbers are official figures – even if we achieve 50% of it, the numbers are too lucrative.
5) Getting content from the internet (expensive bandwidth) vs. getting it from a hosted server within the operator's network certainly reduces the price burden from the customers. The customers do NOT pay anything for the bandwidth consumed by the IPTV's TV, VOD, TSTV etc. services because they are NOT coming over the expensive internet bandwidth.