“What is IPTV” — The First Generation

IPTV is many things to many people, and none of them are wrong.

Sean Riley, Senior Vice President of Sales for Fox:

“[IPTV] is a process where our distributors [franchised operators] take our linear networks and chop up the signals into little packets and send them out over a secure network and put it back together for their customers.”

ITU-T’s IPTV Focus Group:

“IPTV is defined as multimedia services such as television/video/ audio/text/graphics/data delivered over IP based networks managed to provide the required level of QoS/QoE, security, interactivity and reliability.”

IEC’s WebPro Forum “Internet Protocol Television”:

“IPTV is a system used to deliver digital television services to the consumers who are registered subscribers for this system. This delivery of digital television is made possible by using Internet Protocol over a broadband connection, usually in a managed network rather than the public Internet to preserve quality of service guarantees. Often, this service is provided together with Video facility on demand.”

First generation IPTV service offerings and deployments had many different views on IPTV, just like in any technology and service offering hype cycle during the hype phase:

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Telecom Operators (e.g. Deutsche Telekom, AT&T, FastWeb): IPTV commonly described a dedicated owned and operated IP-based multicast distribution platform for TV and live content with transport security: The transport channel for content is secured and access to the platform is subscriber-based. Content is delivered near real-time.

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Multi-Service Operators (e.g. Comcast, Verizon): MSOs commonly set aside “channels” within their existing services delivery platform for TV and live content and translate traditional radio-frequency modulations of analog and digital channels onto fiber or cable channel modulations. A “splitter” is needed to split these TV signals from Internet or telephony services. MSO platforms are commonly access network secured: they require a specific end device to access the delivery platform. Content is delivered near real-time.

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Internet Service Providers (Joost, Babelgum, Hulu, Adobe Media Player): IPTV is a service delivering TV, live, and on-demand content over the Internet through an end user’s existing Internet access technology and via existing traditional Internet transport protocols. Services are accessed through portals or special software players and are service access secured (if at all): Access is granted after username and password is entered. Content is delivered near real-time, as a download, or “leeched” and preloaded over time.

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Content Owners and Aggregators (Warner, Fox, Disney, TVN): IPTV is another secure means of many different partners and players to distribute content – however that may happen.

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