The future of IPTV - for any ISP that wants it
Visionman
Member, Super User Posts: 10,303 ✭✭✭
This article is interesting -
"There is a new wholesale service in development that will allow a suite of live TV channels in SD and HD quality to be carried over the BT Wholesale network and multicast to a retail providers customers with the appropriate router and TV set top box in their home. The BT Wholesale TV Connect product may be the game changer that means that BT Retail which spent hundreds of millions on sports rights will see a return on the spend.
The key to the service is that the channels would be multicast across the WBC IP based network reducing the amount of IP traffic used, and with multicast available across the GEA FTTC and FTTP products even the local loop should have no problems.
The TV Connect product is available on a wholesale basis to all WBC based providers, but with BT Retail being the only provider of significant size we presume it will be utilised by them. TV Connect takes in the appropriate SMPTE TV standard and outputs SD at around 3 Mbps and HD at 10 Mbps, which matches the quality of Freeview and satellite TV and also includes support for encrypted channels, meaning pay per view events are feasible.
Later in 2013 the TV Connect service will expand to support lines that are still using WBC ADSL2+ services, but with a more limited channel selection and the increased possibility that a line may not be fast enough to reliably stream a channel.
The battle to remain the UK's largest retail broadband provider is clearly underway, but a recent Guardian blog has suggested that with some 2.5 million BT customers also subscribing to Sky TV, Sky might be able to encourage them away to their LLU network and the magic number needed to push Sky into the number one position is another 2 million broadband subscribers (Market share of the largest broadband providers).
While in the past broadband competition has seen prices pushed into the basement sale area, if the battleground becomes content that is only reliably available over a super fast broadband connection we might actually see a rise in demand for super fast services.
Update 12:15: The pricing of the TV Connect service takes effect from 1st May 2013, and each channel carries a one-off £80,000 activation fee, and the cost per Mbps (Megabit per second) every month is £6,667. This means a 3 Mbps SD channel would cost £20,000 a month to broadcast over the network, rising to £67,000 for a HD channel. How this translates into a cost per subscriber really depends on how many subscribers a channel attracts."
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/58...
And the user comments are even more interesting...
This is bad news for Sky. Very bad news. As where the current Sky/BT tittle-tattle is concerned, it was never about a battle for the sports market. It was/is all about the battle for broadband.
Interesting times.
"There is a new wholesale service in development that will allow a suite of live TV channels in SD and HD quality to be carried over the BT Wholesale network and multicast to a retail providers customers with the appropriate router and TV set top box in their home. The BT Wholesale TV Connect product may be the game changer that means that BT Retail which spent hundreds of millions on sports rights will see a return on the spend.
The key to the service is that the channels would be multicast across the WBC IP based network reducing the amount of IP traffic used, and with multicast available across the GEA FTTC and FTTP products even the local loop should have no problems.
The TV Connect product is available on a wholesale basis to all WBC based providers, but with BT Retail being the only provider of significant size we presume it will be utilised by them. TV Connect takes in the appropriate SMPTE TV standard and outputs SD at around 3 Mbps and HD at 10 Mbps, which matches the quality of Freeview and satellite TV and also includes support for encrypted channels, meaning pay per view events are feasible.
Later in 2013 the TV Connect service will expand to support lines that are still using WBC ADSL2+ services, but with a more limited channel selection and the increased possibility that a line may not be fast enough to reliably stream a channel.
The battle to remain the UK's largest retail broadband provider is clearly underway, but a recent Guardian blog has suggested that with some 2.5 million BT customers also subscribing to Sky TV, Sky might be able to encourage them away to their LLU network and the magic number needed to push Sky into the number one position is another 2 million broadband subscribers (Market share of the largest broadband providers).
While in the past broadband competition has seen prices pushed into the basement sale area, if the battleground becomes content that is only reliably available over a super fast broadband connection we might actually see a rise in demand for super fast services.
Update 12:15: The pricing of the TV Connect service takes effect from 1st May 2013, and each channel carries a one-off £80,000 activation fee, and the cost per Mbps (Megabit per second) every month is £6,667. This means a 3 Mbps SD channel would cost £20,000 a month to broadcast over the network, rising to £67,000 for a HD channel. How this translates into a cost per subscriber really depends on how many subscribers a channel attracts."
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/58...
And the user comments are even more interesting...
This is bad news for Sky. Very bad news. As where the current Sky/BT tittle-tattle is concerned, it was never about a battle for the sports market. It was/is all about the battle for broadband.
Interesting times.
I'm now happy with the disagree icon, because its gone.
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Comments
This is my biggest disappointment with Youview as I was hoping to leave Sky, but won't be in a position until I can record the IPTV channels.
Jim - IP live channels will be recordable once we've added this feature later in the year.
I will email them and see if there is any update!
Which is also linked to churchwardens thread here -
YouView is planning a string of updates for the coming months, as it aims to take connected TV into the mainstream
http://community.youview.com/youview/...
Yes. There are lots of changes coming this year and all of them for the better.
I'm currently with Plusnet and while I might be interested in subscribing to the BT Sports IPTV channels I would not want to change my ISP to BT.
http://community.plus.net/forum/
As for the future, who knows? After all, where IPTV is concerned the possibilities are endless. As evidenced by the fact one can now access the BBC iPlayer and watch (via a link) Coronation Street on the ITV Player. Which is one of those strange but true developments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q...
So where the future of YouView's new EPG content is concerned, anythings possible.
http://community.plus.net/forum/
As for the future, who knows? After all, where IPTV is concerned the possibilities are endless. As evidenced by the fact one can now access the BBC iPlayer and watch (via a link) Coronation Street on the ITV Player. Which is one of those strange but true developments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q...
So where the future of YouView's new EPG content is concerned, anythings possible.So if I understand correctly only BT broadband customers will be able to subscribe to the IPTV channels? It would be a shame if that's the case because it will really limit the potential reach of the IPTV channels. I would be happy to subscribe to BT sports channels but if I have to become a BT broadband customer in order to subscribe then I'm afraid that's a deal breaker for me. I'm very happy with Plusnet and would never go back to BT (I've always had bad experiences in the past when dealing with BT). Having shelled out the best part of £300 for a YouView box I was expecting access to IPTV regardless of ISP so that really would be quite disappointing.
The IPTV channels have really great potential but I think if they want build a critical mass of subscribers they need to be made available on all YouView boxes regardless of ISP.
http://community.plus.net/forum/
As for the future, who knows? After all, where IPTV is concerned the possibilities are endless. As evidenced by the fact one can now access the BBC iPlayer and watch (via a link) Coronation Street on the ITV Player. Which is one of those strange but true developments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q...
So where the future of YouView's new EPG content is concerned, anythings possible.Maybe some IPTV channels will be available on Youview boxes in the future, even if it's not BT Sports. It's early days for this new wholesale service.
What I meant is that YouView is a platform in development. And anythings possible.
Take for instance TalkTalk BB customers who have their own retail (Humax) box. ATM, they cannot access the TT boosts to watch all the extra TV content. But they will be able to shortly. As the platform is about to both progress and evolve this year.
But what your asking for above is kind of like asking 'Can I turn on ITV and watch Eastenders?' To which the answer is obviously no.
So I'll say it again, in a different way - As things stand atm, an ISP can only stream its own content over its own network. Will this situation change in the future? Who knows? And in fairness to the ISP content stakeholders who have taken the time, trouble, money and effort to invest in YouView, they need their unique selling points to sell their own services. Which is fair enough.
What I meant is that YouView is a platform in development. And anythings possible.
Take for instance TalkTalk BB customers who have their own retail (Humax) box. ATM, they cannot access the TT boosts to watch all the extra TV content. But they will be able to shortly. As the platform is about to both progress and evolve this year.
But what your asking for above is kind of like asking 'Can I turn on ITV and watch Eastenders?' To which the answer is obviously no.
So I'll say it again, in a different way - As things stand atm, an ISP can only stream its own content over its own network. Will this situation change in the future? Who knows? And in fairness to the ISP content stakeholders who have taken the time, trouble, money and effort to invest in YouView, they need their unique selling points to sell their own services. Which is fair enough.
What I meant is that YouView is a platform in development. And anythings possible.
Take for instance TalkTalk BB customers who have their own retail (Humax) box. ATM, they cannot access the TT boosts to watch all the extra TV content. But they will be able to shortly. As the platform is about to both progress and evolve this year.
But what your asking for above is kind of like asking 'Can I turn on ITV and watch Eastenders?' To which the answer is obviously no.
So I'll say it again, in a different way - As things stand atm, an ISP can only stream its own content over its own network. Will this situation change in the future? Who knows? And in fairness to the ISP content stakeholders who have taken the time, trouble, money and effort to invest in YouView, they need their unique selling points to sell their own services. Which is fair enough.
What I meant is that YouView is a platform in development. And anythings possible.
Take for instance TalkTalk BB customers who have their own retail (Humax) box. ATM, they cannot access the TT boosts to watch all the extra TV content. But they will be able to shortly. As the platform is about to both progress and evolve this year.
But what your asking for above is kind of like asking 'Can I turn on ITV and watch Eastenders?' To which the answer is obviously no.
So I'll say it again, in a different way - As things stand atm, an ISP can only stream its own content over its own network. Will this situation change in the future? Who knows? And in fairness to the ISP content stakeholders who have taken the time, trouble, money and effort to invest in YouView, they need their unique selling points to sell their own services. Which is fair enough.
"Leading-edge ISPs around the world such as Cablevision, Virgin Media, British Telecom, Telmex, Telus, TDC, GVT, among many others, are already participating in Open Connect to provide the highest-possible quality Netflix service to consumers," said Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings . "Our goal is to have all of our members served by Open Connect as soon as possible."
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releas...
Impressive.
Edit - And this is an overview of it -
https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect
BT will of course be selling this service to itself in order to deliver it's own IPTV channels, which based on 750k subscribers would make it about 1p for a HD channel per customer, and a third of that for a SD channel.
They also have to buy in the channels from whoever is providing them, Discovery or their own BT Sport channels. The total cost is soon going to add up for the service provider. I'm wondering whether it will be competitive at the end of the day, or whether it'll end up being a similar price to Sky.
Its estimated that broadcasting Sky Sports on DTT costs BT £10m per year per channel. And the same for the Top Up TV/CH5 ESPN slot, too.
Satellite is much cheaper, as the BBC broadcasts multiple channels (including regional variations) and the estimated total cost for all those channels paid to Sky is estimated to be £10m. This is a situation which may change in the future (to £0 zero), but thats another story.
So as you can see from the above, its much, much cheaper to both launch and run a 'channel' via IPTV than it is via any other means.
But to take a slight aside on the matter, lets look at Sky's new foray into the IPTV market. Fortune! And just not worth it.