Internet Tv Is The Next Big Development

[george]

Internet TV is the next big development

BANGKOK: -- Alcatel of France believes that TV broadcasts over the Internet is the next big thing and is positioning itself to jump quickly to the front of the household high-speed broadband market when television arrives.

Pierre-Jean Chalon, Alcatel's director for IPTV and fixed solutions division for Asia Pacific region, said IPTV was part of the group's triple play solutions business, a service to let users watch satellite-based TV, order real-time video-on-demand over broadband Internet, and make telephone calls _ simultaneously if they wish.

Mr Chalon said he believed IPTV would be the next-generation solution for the media and television sectors, and will challenge the current offerings of the pay-TV providers.

Alcatel intends to focus on the household sector, he said. The company expects at least 200,000 IPTV subscribers in Thailand in less than three years.

The company sees rising Thai demand for broadband services and the increasing focus from local telephone operators including TOT Corp, CAT Telecom and True Corp.

Mr Chalon said the IPTV solution was growing rapidly in the global market, with up to one million customers also subscribed worldwide. Alcatel claims a world market share of up to 80% of the market.

''We forecast up to 20% of global broadband users could turn to IPTV services within the next two years,'' he said.

He did not give the number of current broadband users, but said there should be 315 million broadband customers by 2010.

There are 1.5 billion TV sets in households worldwide, and 650 million in the Asia Pacific region.

''Alcatel projects 100 million euros [4.95 billion baht] in IPTV revenue this year,'' he said.

Mr Chalon, however, said major challenges for IPTV services included the requirement for a broadcast licence from state agencies, a shortage of content providers and security standards.

Philippe Chettou, senior vice-president of Alcatel Asia Pacific responsible for Southeast Asia (North) and also the managing director of Alcatel (Thailand) Co, said the company planned to introduce voice over IP _ telephone_ service in Thailand within a year.

--Bangkok Post 2005-07-07

[h90]

would be fine if they would bring normal internet to the stage where it was in europe 5 years ago, first.

[waldwolf]

To accomplish what their talking about (actual broadband TV over the internet) will require FTTH (Fiber-To-The-Home).

While Japan, Singapore and other Asian countries are moving rapidly ahead with FTTH, most other countries are actually lagging behind. The USA, for example, has dropped from 2nd. to 13th. place in this "race".

If it's going to take them 1 year to get VOIP up and running, my guess is it will take 10+ years to install FTTH to the point it is practical and profitable. And the cost ............ (Don't even ask.)

I wonder who they expect will put up the money for this venture?

[sajal]

To accomplish what their talking about (actual broadband TV over the internet) will require FTTH (Fiber-To-The-Home).

While Japan, Singapore and other Asian countries are moving rapidly ahead with FTTH, most other countries are actually lagging behind. The USA, for example, has dropped from 2nd. to 13th. place in this "race".

If it's going to take them 1 year to get VOIP up and running, my guess is it will take 10+ years to install FTTH to the point it is practical and profitable. And the cost ............ (Don't even ask.)

I wonder who they expect will put up the money for this venture?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

iptv if streemed using mpeg4 would give u very good quality with 2 mbps...i dont think FTTH is needed....

only that the mpeg4 equipment is very rare,...and expensive too....

if they go with mpeg 2 then better bandwidth is needed....or the quality is sacrificed...

as per the info i had was that true is also into IPTV....they r also planin somethin big.

[The Coder]

Thailand has a track record of implementing technology that just doesn't work right. The ADSL fiasco well documented in this board is one example. UBC satellite is another example--your tv goes blank every time it rains which can be a daily ritual and the compression causes annoying loss of picture quality all the time. Those things just wouldn't fly in developed countries. I suspect for Internet TV, they will just live with lots of outages (whether they be brief few second glitch, choppiness when overloaded, or hours at a time when the service goes down), terrible picture quality (due to overusing compression, super low resolution, and low frame rates to fit into the insufficient bandwidth), and even putting limits on how many hours a day a subcriber can watch TV so as to save precious bandwidth. My observation is the way they do things here is duct tape some shoddy technologies together that has low quality and a high failure rate and sell it at premium western prices. So I would not be surprised to see them roll this contraption out on top of the already problematic existing infrastructure.

[sajal]

Thailand has a track record of implementing technology that just doesn't work right. The ADSL fiasco well documented in this board is one example. UBC satellite is another example--your tv goes blank every time it rains which can be a daily ritual and the compression causes annoying loss of picture quality all the time. Those things just wouldn't fly in developed countries. I suspect for Internet TV, they will just live with lots of outages (whether they be brief few second glitch, choppiness when overloaded, or hours at a time when the service goes down), terrible picture quality (due to overusing compression, super low resolution, and low frame rates to fit into the insufficient bandwidth), and even putting limits on how many hours a day a subcriber can watch TV so as to save precious bandwidth. My observation is the way they do things here is duct tape some shoddy technologies together that has low quality and a high failure rate and sell it at premium western prices. So I would not be surprised to see them roll this contraption out on top of the already problematic existing infrastructure.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mai Bpen rai.....;-)

[Thetyim]

You can't get a bloody phone line for dial up yet so Mr Pierre-Jean Chalon don't give me any BS about internet TV.