ADSL2

ZyXEL senses synergies

Dan O'Shea — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:08:55 -0500

Taiwan's ZyXEL Communications, which has been a major player in the global broadband access market for many years, will be coming to TelcoTV 2008 with a message of synergy. More to the point, the vendor will be talking to carriers about the synergy between its access solutions (such as VDSL2 and ADSL2+ backed by GPON and other PON flavors), in-home connectivity solutions (such as HPNA, 802.11n and powerline options) and IPTV applications in the home. The company said it sees more telcos wanting to move further into the home to be the customer's in-house technology expert.

At the moment, ZyXEL also is concerned about the lag in IPTV progress in the U.S. market, which is certain to be a topic on everyone's minds at TelcoTV 2008. Munira Brooks, senior vice president of sales and marketing and strategic account development at ZyXEL, said, "The U.S. market is slowly embracing telco TV. We don't know whether this will pick up in 2009 or not." Brooks said macro-economic pressure has been a key reason for the market caution. "At the moment, everybody just wants equipment prices to come down, but we have done a lot of that already."

BT rolls on with FTTH project, upgrades Home Hub

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:11:02 -0400

BT, which had been testing a fiber-to-the-home architecture in the U.K. community of Ebbsfleet earlier this year, said it is committing to a broader FTTH network roll-out with an investment of around $3 billion. The company mentioned IPTV and high-definition TV as being among the reasons for making the investment. While some regions of the world, such as France, have seen carriers be aggressive early on with fiber projects, U.K. broadband deployments have been characterized more by technologies like ADSL2+. BT said the fiber push will reach 10 million homes by 2012, but some observers already are saying that the spending commitment by BT indicates a cautious and limited roll-out plan.

In other IPTV-related news at BT, the carrier has introduced a new wireless router for its Home Hub connected home service. The router is based on the 802.11n WiFi specification, and it greatly improves coverage range, security and other aspects of the telco's Home Hub service.

For more:
- read this story at ZDNet.co.uk
- check out this Home Hub coverage at Connected Home News

Related articles:
BT was nowhere near making a fiber commitment two years ago. BT report
BT recently sold content delivery firm Assethouse to Amino Technologies. BT report

Telekom Austria doing HD, time-shifting

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:10:52 -0400

Telekom Austria is making an IPTV push, upgrading its aonTV service with the help of Alcatel-Lucent to offer time-shifted TV and HDTV capabilities. The telco also is working on expanding availability of the service throughout this year, as it is currently available only to slightly more than 50 percent of the country, according to TeleGeography. Most of the deployments have been over ADSL2+ in urban areas and, thus far, Telekom Austria has made no commitment to use fiber-to-the-home to reach into less dense markets, despite major competition from incumbent cable TV and satellite TV players.

For more:
- read this post at TeleGeography
- here's more about Telekom Austria's approach from a story last fall at Telecommunications

Related article:
Telekom Austria's global IPTV ranking Telekom Austria IPTV report

Top European IPTV drivers

Tom Burton — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:04:24 -0400

Western Europe leads the world in IPTV deployment, but big differences between country take-up rates reveal the key drivers and impediments critical to IPTV growth.

Just seven of 17 Western European countries account for 94 percent of all IPTV customers, according to the latest edition of TV Markets Quarterly Monitoring from InfoCom. The seven leading IPTV players, France, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden had an estimated 6 million IPTV subscribers as of December 2007. France dominates that group with 4.3 million households watching IPTV.

The concentration of IPTV growth within a handful of markets reflects strong national differences in communications infrastructure, competition, pricing, regulation and broadcasting and pay-TV cultures. Cesar Bachelet, ABI Research’s senior analyst for multi-channel Video says much of France’s leadership in the IPTV market stems from its regulator strongly policing the unbundling of the local loop from an early stage.

This gave alternative operators more control over the services they offer and the ability to deploy technologies such as ADSL2+ without relying upon the incumbent telco. This in turn has spurred strong competition in the fixed telecommunications arena, resulting in attractively priced triple-play packages.

At the same time, the cable industry had until recently been fragmented and faced stiff planning restrictions on the placement of satellite dishes. This forced leading content owner and DTH operator Canal Plus France to cooperate with IPTV operators to deliver its premium channel packages through IPTV infrastructure.

Bachelet has just published a Global IPTV report for ABI covering all the major markets. Bachelet says France’s strong “practical” enforcement of local loop unbundling (LLU) early on is in contrast to many other European countries, where LLU was not so effectively enforced at the beginning.

In France, the emergence of three major providers--Orange (France Telecom), Iliad’s Free and Neuf Cegetel--has seen a strong head-to-head battle for market share. All major operators offer basic triple play packages priced around 30 euros (about $45.60) a month. Bachelet says this makes the actual incremental cost of getting IPTV only about five euros ($7.60): “Consumers who have signed up for broadband access and fixed voice and can therefore get digital TV at little additional cost.”

Iliad, which trades under the name Free, is easily the largest IPTV deployment in the world with 2.4 million IPTV-enabled customers as of end 2007. FT reported 1.2 million IPTV subscribers and Neuf 750,000 subscribers. All carriers enjoyed rapid growth in the final quarter of 2007.

The dynamic take up of IPTV in France contrasts with Germany where Deutsche Telecom has had to drop its prices twice in an attempt to kick start demand. Bachelet says the German market is very price sensitive with low average TV ARPU rates. But with the local cable system still very much analog he says DT has a “window of opportunity” to grow its market. DT cut the subscription price by 25 percent last year and re-branded the service to Entertain IPTV.

Late January it announced an aggressive target of 500,000 IPTV subscribers by the end of the year, a 350,000 growth over the year. And at CeBit, the big telco this month surprised the market again with another 17 percent price cut to bring the basic package down to 49.95 euros ($75.92) a month. As with France the basic triple play price--including IPTV--is now only moderately higher (10 euros—or $15.20--per month) than the double play--internet and voice—price.

The use of discounting to grow the market has been most aggressive in Sweden where Bachelet says the local telco, TeliaSonera, has offered basic IPTV for free as part of a triple play bundle. TeliaSonera has expanded in Estonia and Lithuania and late last year said it would move into Finland where it already has a cable television service. It had 300,000 Swedish customers at the end of the year and 50,000 in Estonia and Lithuania and recently began a Video on Demand program in association with Disney and Discovery.

According to InfoChoice, it is in those markets, where carriers have faced well-organized cable operators, where IPTV has struggled to gain significant traction. A combination of satellite and cable TV are the preferred platforms in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg. Cable is often bundled into a set fee for town houses and other multi-apartment developments. Cable is frequently delivered as a utility service, like gas or electricity, to tenants who have little say over which services they receive.

IPTV has similarly struggled in the U.K. where the presence of a strong pay-TV operator, News Corporation’s Sky Television, has made it difficult for BT or any other player to gain a significant market position. But unlike parts of mainland Europe, SkyTV is not considered a utility service and has had to win market share off its own back.

In the late 1980s it was launched into a market with a limited number of free to air channels and no pay-TV and gained its market strength through the 1990’s by securing key football rights. “Sky is a smart operator, having acquired ISP Easynet to deliver a triple-play package to its customers, featuring free entry-level broadband access,” says Bachelet.

Other ISPs are also offering free or heavily discounted broadband access, which lessens the appeal of BT’s triple play package. In the U.S., Verizon executives have confirmed it is the attraction of high-speed internet rather than multi-channel television that is selling subscribers to its FiOS service.

Another key handicap for IPTV in the U.K. is the low access speeds on its core networks. BT currently uses R-ADSL, which delivers maximum download speeds of up to 8 Mbs. Although there are now plans to upgrade to ADSL2+ in France, ADSL2+ infrastructure has already been widely deployed and major operators are starting to roll-out fiber in the major cities.

The use of smart programming offers has also been behind the success of Belgacom’s IPTV service, which had more than 250,000 subscribers at the end of 2007. Not only did it secure the Jupiler League soccer rights for three years prior to its launch in 2005, Belgacom has also been able to secure a deal with Warner Bros. to provide selected feature film titles on demand at the same time as they are released to DVD. This has proved to be a key driver in its take-up rates in Belgum.

Belgacom has had more success in the southern French-speaking Walloon region because of the lack of a strong cable operator. In the north, there is one dominant cable operator that is digitalising its service. “As in some areas of the U.S., the presence of a digital cable operator has meant consumers can get many of the services IPTV can offer such as DVRs and true VOD,” says Bachelet. But, in markets where the cable operator is still largely analog, telcos have seen an opportunity. This is the case in Germany and most of Central and Eastern Europe, where the incumbent telco has faced largely analog cable networks.

Spanish cable operator ONO has a predominantly digital subscriber base but this has not stopped Telefonica from emerging as one of the most successful incumbents in the European market. With more than 500,000 subscribers, it is the second-biggest incumbent player in Europe. Unlike DT which delayed its IPTV investment, Telefonica launched its Imagenio IPTV service back in 2004 and got early success in a country where there was not significant pay-TV penetration.

In Italy, despite the lack of a cable industry, IPTV has struggled. Competitor carrier Fastweb was one of the first players to offer IPTV, but until recently it was held back by its limited reach and Italy’s low propensity for pay-TV services. It has only 170,000 subscribers to show for the six-year-old service. Indeed, DTT (digital terrestrial TV), which combines free-to-air television with an option to pre-pay for premium content, notably Serie A soccer , has been much more successful to date.

Lack of competition also reflected inflexibility in the triple-play offering, but this has recently changed as competitors Telecom Italia, Wind, and Tiscali started to roll out their services. Bachelet believes there may also be a cultural issue at play with the climate and social habits creating a lifestyle not conducive to increase television watching.

Looking out, the biggest change is likely to be regulatory, with the EU pushing for greater and more consistent access to the local loop, as well as incumbent NGNs (next-generation networks). The EU and Germany are at loggerheads, and backed by new local legislation DT has been reluctant to open up its new high-speed VDSL exchanges for wholesale access by competitors. It last week filed a proposed wholesale pricing agreement with the local network regulator.

It has been the ability for multiple providers to access the local exchanges that has driven France’s rapid deployment of IPTV. How the EU manages this issue will determine if Europe is able to maintain IPTV leadership. Alternatively there is a risk of being left in a regulatory stalemate, with providers and carriers unable to roll out new services. This will be especially so in markets where IPTV take-up remains relatively low, such as the U.K. and Germany.

Other growth opportunities center around the next generation of services. Several carriers are now promoting media streaming services, enabling subscribers to access PC-based video content on their TV set, and a variety of blended services, such as caller display on the TV.

Bachelet also points to the impending upgrade to MPEG-4 compression standard so as to enable HD television as an opportunity for vendors. Broadly the drivers that have created the favourable conditions are expected to continue and, if anything, improve. With the impending analog switch-off of terrestrial TV--which will occur at different times throughout Europe--IPTV operators are positioning themselves as one of the possible choices for digital TV.

ABI estimates there are currently 7.2 million IPTV households across both west and east Europe. It predicts this market will quadruple over the next five years to 30.3 million subscribers.

ALSO NOTED: Video firms raise venture cap; Thomson launches VDSL2/VDSL2+ chipset; and much more...

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 06:58:20 -0400

> Agent Video Intelligence Inc., a New York developer of video intelligence technology raised $3 million in Series B funding from 21Ventures, bringing its total investment to $13 million. Press Release

>Vidyo Inc., an online HD video conferencing concern in Hackensack, N.J. raised $12 million in a funding round let by Rho Ventures. Press Release

> San Diego, Calif., video encryptor Verimatrix raised $5 million from several backers. Press Release

> Thomson says it launched a chipset that allows simultaneous VDSL2 and ADSL2+ connectivity in addition to triple play. Press Release

> Telecompaper reports that T-Com Croatia is letting users test its IPTV service for three months. The pub is subscription only, but the way into the story is here

> Chilean telecom company Telefonica del Sur tapped Ruckus Wireless of Sunnyvale Calif., to support its IPTV launch. Press Release

ALSO NOTED: 25 IPTV strategies from Digital TX; WEGENER using Verimatrix to track piracy; and much more...

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 19:00:50 -0500

> In addition to VoD and billing capabilities, Digital TX Managing Director Alexander Cameron suggests IPTV strategies for 25 U.K. companies including Vodafone and Channel 4. Article

> TI's AR7 ADSL2+ technology will be integrated with Corinex's ADSL2+ AV200 Powerline residential gateway to distribute up to nine simultaneous streams of video, including High Definition. Release

> Reliance Communication Ventures and Microsoft will roll out commercial IPTV in India by year's end. Article

> A new ad points out cable TV's 86 percent price hike over the past 10 years and urges Americans to call on Congress to declare an era of "TV Freedom" by bringing competition and choice. Release | "Through the Roof" Ad

> Midwest TelNet selects Latens FCAS Conditional Access solution to secure its IPTV services. FCAS will integrate with Amino's set-top boxes (STBs) and with Minerva's iTV Manager. Release (.pdf)

> Affordable Telecommunications Technology (Buzz Technologies) acquired a Geneva-based STB manufacturer. Release

> eWAN1 Global IPTV service will be launched in 36 languages including Urdu to help U.S. efforts in providing alternate programming in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Release

> WEGENER integrates Verimatrix's user-specific forensic watermarking technology, VideoMark, into its IPTV STBs to track piracy. Release

> UIEvolution partners with OnDemand TV to deliver high-definition VOD-IPTV service with surround sound to 60 million customers at Japanese NTT-East and NTT-West this spring. Release

> Lucent is upgrading Cavalier Telephone's DMX platforms to converged LNW70 Ethernet cards to enable its new IPTV service offering in Virginia. Release

> Irish Magnet Networks deploys Zignal IPTV service delivery platform. Release

> KPN cleared to acquire Nozema. Article

And Finally... Verizon laptop theft may leave workers vulnerable to ID fraud Article (Wall Street Journal sub. req.)

BellSouth to launch IPTV service in 2007

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:01:37 -0500

BellSouth plans to expand its technical IPTV trials to market trials with 1,000 participants by the middle of the year. If all goes well the company expects to launch the service commercially by the end of the year or early 2007. BellSouth recently inked a deal with SES Americom to trial its IP Prime, a satellite-centric IPTV distribution solution that reportedly enables the distribution of hundreds of standard and HD IPTV streams as part of a triple play. BellSouth is testing IP Prime alongside its ADSL2+ platform. The company denies claims it's waiting to see if AT&T will go with Microsoft's IPTV software before it does as well.

For more on BellSouth's IPTV plans:
- check out this quote-filled article from TelecomWeb