IPTV Yet To Catch Up In India
By Anuradha Ramamirtham
Mumbai, May 30, 2007

It has been two years since telecom operators in India succeeded in publicizing the concept of viewing TV on Internet Protocol (IPTV), but the real adoption still seems to be in its early stages.

In the chaos caused between the adoption of Direct to Home (DTH) and Conditional Access System (CAS), IPTV is yet another choice for the customers. The reason being that broadband is gradually becoming available.

Many Indian companies including Reliance- Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) have ventured into this arena with Blue Magic, a broadcasting service network that includes Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), high-speed Internet and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

But the actual TV broadcasters in the country feel the time is not ripe yet. Speaking to CXOtoday.com, Anuj Gandhi, president of Sony Entertainment Television (SET) Discovery said, "IPTV is still in the nascent stage. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority Of India (TRAI), there are just about 1 million people engaged with broadband. With inexpensive cable network available there isn t any dying need for Indian market to adopt IPTV."

However, if the government tries to push CAS, experts feel there will be a blackout and people would think of choosing between CAS or IPTV. "Given the trend, people might prefer IPTV," said Gandhi.

As of now IPTV adoption has roadblocks on the way. Gandhi states, "Bandwidth availability is a very big challenge. Then there are issues like freezing of signals, lag time due to low bandwidth." Also, Telcos, who are pushing for IPTV need to provide greater value added services. Certain operational issues too dog the wider usage of IPTV. "MTNL has appointed 5 service providers for the same area which goes to increase confusion," clarified Gandhi.

When asked if SET would venture into IPTV, Gandhi said, "We are a service provider company. If demand arises we would provide services for IPTV too. We have had trial deals with companies like India Infoline, India Online, and talks are going on with Reliance- Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group and Times Broadband."

Also, requesting anonymity to CXOtoday.com, the IT head of another prominent TV channel admitted the slow pace of acceptance of IPTV in India. According to him, it is the lack of infrastructure and confusion on IPTV as a technology that hinders faster adoption of the same. "We were the one of the first people to venture into IPTV segment but later decided to keep distance from it because it provided no value to customers," informed the IT head.

Market analysts, however, seem upbeat as they find huge revenues riding on this service. An estimated 26 million subscribers will be hooked on to this in another three years, bringing in revenues of close to $10 billion.

Meanwhile, realizing this potential, certain IPTV equipment providers like UTStarcom are gradually making inroads into emerging markets of China and India. UTStarcom has reported that it has incorporated Optibase's encoding platforms in its end-to-end RollingStream IPTV solutions for the deployment with Aksh Optifibre, a provider of IPTV solutions in India. Earlier, in February, it had rolled IPTV offerings in China.