IPTV Asia

Spotlight: PCCW plays defense, then offense

Dan O'Shea — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:05:32 -0500

PCCW of Hong Kong was one of the first telcos anywhere to deploy IPTV commercially, and Ted Hsiung, head of business development at PCCW, discussed the company's experience and future plans while speaking at at the IPTV World Forum Asia last week. Hsiung, as reported at Light Reading, noted that IPTV starts as a defensive play for telcos, but it must evolve into an offensive strategy. PCCW took some unique steps to IPTV success, launching with a free set-top box offer for customers, and also focusing strongly on content and the creation of its own content security system housed in its network rather than in the STB.

The company also has done a lot of work with opt-in interactive advertising, something IPTV carriers in the U.S. are likely to be working on in 2009. PCCW now has about 932,000 subscribers, giving it one of the largest IPTV customer bases in the world. Next up, Hsiung said PCCW will be focusing much more on home networking.

For more:
- Light Reading has this report

China Telecom finishes Shanghai upgrade

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:37:19 -0500

China Telecom, which has about 1.51 million IPTV customers in China, has completed an upgrade to the Shanghai portion of its network, on which it offers service in partnership with Shanghai Media Group. IPTV News reports that the upgrade will support a surge toward 900,000 IPTV customers in the area, with the telco particularly focusing on Shanghai, where service adoption has been strong. China Telecom also has a key IPTV development lab there. ZTE, UTStarcom and Huawei Technologies were among key vendors on the upgrade project. The telco also earlier this year lined up orders for up to 574,000 set-top boxes, most of them high-definition STBs.

For more:
- IPTV News has this report

KT resolves broadcaster issues, launches linear IPTV

Dan O'Shea — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:27:05 -0500

Korea Telecom reportedly launched linear IPTV programming this week after resolving an impasse with national broadcasters over carriage terms, according to an IPTV News report based on a Telecoms Korea article. The MegaTV Live service carries content from broadcasters KBS, MBC and SBS, and offers a total of 33 channels, 85,000 video on-demand titles, and interactive services such as Internet banking and online shopping.

KT reported later in the week that its existing VoD IPTV service, MegaTV, had added 102,245 subscribers in the third quarter to reach 808,101.

For more:
- IPTV News has this post

Chunghwa Telecom IPTV subs up 82,000

Dan O'Shea — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:42:20 -0500

Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan reported that it added about 82,000 IPTV subscribers during the third quarter, growth of more than 65 percent versus the same period last year. The company now has 591,000 subscribers for its '"Multimedia On Demand" (MOD) IPTV service. IPTV News reports that the telco also surpassed 4.32 million broadband customers, as of the end of September. About 1.5 million of those subscribers have service speeds above 8 Mbps.

For more:
- IPTV News has this post

KT IPTV lacks broadcasters

Dan O'Shea — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:21:42 -0400

Korea Telecom is rolling out an IPTV trial next week in South Korea and is planning to launch commercial service next month. Both announcements should be additional feathers in the cap of one of the world's most aggressive and assertive broadband carriers, but the incumbent telco is lacking key agreements with Korean broadcasters to support the service.

As a result, there only two non-profit national channels represented in the service, while KT continues to negotiate with the other broadcasters. The impasse, in part, contributed to the commercial service launch being delayed from this month to next month. The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) may intervene if those negotiations don't result in agreements by the end of October.

KT already offers a successful video-on-demand service called MegaTV, but its IPTV offering would be its first service to include fresh content from national broadcasters.

For more:
- see this story at The Korea Times

KT to invest $1.5 billion in IPTV

Dan O'Shea — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:25:06 -0400

South Korea's Korean Telecom is planning for a commercial launch of linear IPTV service next month, and the telco said this week that it plans to invest about $1.5 billion in its IPTV efforts by 2012. KT currently is testing its service and expects to have around 300,000 subscribers for linear broadcast IPTV by the end of this year. Moreover, the company hopes to see the service break even by 2011 and collect 3 million subscribers by the end of 2012, according to IPTV News.

KT's announcement comes not long after the Korean government awarded IPTV licenses to KT and competitors Hanaro Telecom and LG Dacom. All three of those carriers actually already offer video-on-demand IPTV services via their broadband networks. Hanaro Telecom has been ahead of incumbent KT in that area, signing up close to 1 million subscribers, while KT has around 700,000 from its MegaTV service.

For more:
- see this report at IPTV News

China Telecom picks vendors for IPTV gear

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:26:18 -0400

China Telecom has chosen its system platform and set-top box manufacturers for IPTV expansions and upgrades by its provincial operating branches. The system platform vendors include ZTE, UTStarcom and Alcatel-Lucent. China Telecom also had envisioned a need for more than 530,000 standard-definition set-top boxes, and its vendors for those now include ZTE, UTStarcom, Coship, Motorola, Huawei, Postcom, Sunniwell, Alcatel-Lucent, Yuxing, 30 Kaitian and Changhong. Suppliers for about 38,000 high-definition set-top boxes include ZTE, UTStarcom, Alcatel-Lucent, Postcom and Changhong.

All of the suppliers are potential vendors from which the provincial branches can make their actual deployment choices. Those provincial units are not allowed to further negotiate pricing. China Telecom has around 1 million IPTV customers, and said a few months ago that it was looking arrange orders for as many as 574,000 set-top boxes.

For more:
- read this post at IPTV News

Related articles:
China Telecom had been closing in on 1 million IPTV subs as of last May. China Telecom report
China Telecom opened an IPTV lab in Shanghai last month. China Telecom report

Reliance eyes IPTV launch this year

Dan O'Shea — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:43:12 -0400

Reliance Communications reiterated that it is planning to launch IPTV service before the end of 2008, according to a statement by company president Mahesh Prasad in The Economic Times of India. As early as January 2007, Reliance had said that it was targeting a launch before the end of this year, and Prasad's comments suggested that the service provider is starting to see the demand for which it was hoping. Reliance announced an IPTV-related partnership with Microsoft late last year, but it seems to have been taking its time while other service providers in India began their own TV rollouts.

For more:
- read this story at The Economic Times

Related articles:
Reliance said 18 months ago it would launch by the end of 2008. Reliance report
India--and the rest of Asia--has been seen as the next IPTV hotbed. India report

Olympics stoke interest in Chinese IPTV

Dan O'Shea — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:38:02 -0400

Telcos in China are reporting accelerated IPTV sign-ups just ahead of the beginning the Summer Olympics in Beijing this weekend, according to an IPTV News post citing local news reports. China Telecom reportedly is receiving about 3,000 applications for IPTV services each day, while Shanghai Telecom has also said that it will promote a new picture-in-picture service during the Olympics that will allow viewers to watch more than one event on the same screen. China Telecom recently was nearing 1 million IPTV customers, and Shanghai Telecom currently has 510,000 IPTV customers.

For more:
- see this post at IPTV News

Related articles:
China Telecom said it had 940,000 IPTV customers back in May. China Telecom report
China Telecom recently opened an IPTV lab in Shanghai. China Telecom report

Korea Telecom collects 700,000 IPTV customers

Dan O'Shea — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:56:31 -0400

Korea Telecom has been facing stiff broadband competition, but the telco still managed to reach 700,000 subscribers for its "MegaTV" IPTV service by the end of the second quarter of this year. It has been the telco's ambition to reach 1.5 million subscribers by the end of this year. More than 130,000 subscribers came on board during the quarter. Still, that progress did not save KT from a 30 percent decline in net income to about $158.9 million.

For more:
- check out this coverage at IPTV News

Related articles:
KT reportedly has been facing increasing competitive and economic pressure. KT report
KT and Samsung have jointly promoted the telco's IPTV offering. KT report

Broadband Forum/Point Topic: IPTV subs double again

Dan O'Shea — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:14:36 -0400

The Broadband World Forum Asia is going on in Hong Kong this week, and the Broadband Forum (formerly the DSL Forum) thought it was a good place and time to announce that global broadband subscribers now number 370 million, while global IPTV subscribers now amount to almost 15.5 million. The research was compiled for the Broadband Forum by Point Topic, and the results highlight a doubling of IPTV subscribers for the second straight year.

IPTV is seen as driving sign-up to fiber broadband networks worldwide, with more than 10 million people now connected to fiber networks. Fiber network subscriptions are up 33 percent since the beginning of 2007. However, it may come as a surprise to some that the leading technology delivering IPTV today is ADSL2plus, with 12.1 million subscribers, according to the Forum's press release on the numbers. About 8.4 million of all IPTV subscribers are in European countries. Here are more details from the Broadband Forum release on the Point Topic research:

Regional IPTV subscriber growth worldwide, first quarter 2007 and 2008

     Region                              Q1 2007             Q1 2008

    Europe                             3,875,266           8,425,370

    Asia-Pacific                       1,129,355           2,619,035

    North America                        850,601           2,258,601

    South and East Asia                1,353,000           2,086,000

    Latin America                          2,300              11,183

    Middle East and Africa                10,000              10,000

    TOTAL                              7,220,522          15,410,189

"IPTV operators around the world have shown that systems are scalable and can handle rapid growth in subscriber numbers," said Point Topic Senior Analyst John Bosnell in the release. 
"However, developing and agreeing standards will help these operators deliver IPTV more simply and effectively over a variety of access technologies and help to drive higher up take in other markets."

For more:
- See the MarketWatch story

Related articles:
Global IPTV to see 52% annual growth through 2012 IPTV growth report
U.S. IPTV market to grow to $14 billion by 2012 U.S. IPTV report

China Telecom opens Shanghai IPTV lab

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:25:09 -0400

China Telecom has started an IPTV research laboratory within its existing Shanghai research facility, according to local newspaper reports. The aim, those reports said, is to develop technologies in line with international standards, and to provide IPTV-related testing and validation services.

China Telecom offers IPTV services in conjunction with Shanghai Media Group, and those services now reach roughly 1 million customers in 17 cities throughout China. The companies are aiming to reach 2 million subscribers by the end of this year.

For more:
- see this post at China Knowledge

Related articles:
China Telecom was said to be just shy of 1 million customers in May (but the company now says it hit that number the same month) China Telecom report
China's telecom industry is moving ahead with a restructuring of the entire industry China report