Telecom firms cleared for IPTV

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New Delhi, Feb 4: The decks have finally been cleared for telecom operators like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications to provide Internet protocol television (or, IPTV) services. This comes after the ministry of information & broadcasting accepted the recommendation of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to allow broadcasters to transmit their feeds via the IPTV platform.

Under current regulations, broadcasters are allowed to provide TV signals only via cable or DTH. IPTV allows the delivery of TV programmes using an IP and high-speed broadband network. Both cable operators and telecom companies will be able to provide IPTV services under existing laws and their content will be regulated by the I&B ministry.

Telecom operators with unified access service licences and cellular mobile telephony service licences to provide triple-play services, as well as Internet service providers with a net worth of more than Rs 100 crore with permission from the licensor to provide IPTV can provide the service without further registration.

Bharti Airtel started IPTV trials a year ago in 1,000 households in Gurgaon and is slated to launch its services in the first half of next fiscal. RComm also plans to launch the service in ten cities around the same time. State-owned BSNL recently launched multi-play services for broadband customers in Pune. VSNL also is expected to launch IPTV services soon.

Marketing research firm iSuppli of California projected that the global IPTV subscriber base of 14.5 million in 2007 would grow to approximately 63 million by 2010.

For set-top boxes, the Bureau of Indian Standards will look into specifications for IPTV to help cable operators while designing their IPTV networks.

IPTV is considered a good business model for telecom operators. However, the cable industry views IPTV services by telecom operators as an encroachment into their area of operations and a threat to their business models.