Special Report
Measuring our worth:
the role of the broadcast
service provider in the IP world
A look at GlobeCast’s experience in the IPTV sector.
a very different animal to the voice and
data the telcos are used to providing. It is
much more sensitive and needs much better
monitoring facilities to ensure good service.
It also requires a high bandwidth broadband
network which needs to be supported by a
significant investment in network upgrades.
Customers will put up with the occasional
dropped call or slow download of a web
page, but if a television signal drops out for
even as much as five seconds, it’s churn
city.
Service providers like GlobeCast have an
important role to play in this respect, having
been integrated in the broadcast world since
the analogue days and having faced nearly
every possible scenario with regard to signal
reliability. It is intimately familiar with the
broadcasting industry from both sides -
programmer and distributor alike.
For new entrants to the IPTV game, there
is another challenge - the significant cost of
acquiring and monitoring the equipment
needed to successfully operate an IPTV
headend. Service providers with extensive
S
imply providing satellite solutions simply put, is added value. Good content is technical facilities can fill in the gap here,
was enough for a company to live only part of the equation - interactivity and allowing the IPTV operator to outsource the
on in the 1990s, when analogue value added services are now key. With build-out, management and supervision of
was king, IPTV was an untested broadcasters increasingly finding that they its headend. The result is that the telco can
solution and broadband itself was only very cannot focus purely on acquiring and focus on its subscribers and line-up, the
slowly creeping into Europe and North aggregating content while managing the broadcasters can focus on their content, and
America. technical aspects of being present on various leave the technical management in more
Step-by-step however, time threatened to platforms, they need service providers who capable and experienced hands. GlobeCast,
erode the value that these satellite services can add this value - in the form of broadcast for example, already does this for Orange in
companies were providing. Channels started expertise and worldwide multiplatform France, receiving, aggregating, MPEG-4
to say: ‘If your role is simply to put content solutions that combine everything from encoding and delivering a full bouquet of
up on a satellite and bring it down again content and rights aggregation to media channels from its technical operations centre
across the world, why wouldn’t I go directly management and delivery. to the telecom, which now counts over 1.5
to the satellite or fibre operator itself?’ The There is always pressure for channels to million TV-over-ADSL subscribers. This is a
answer from the service provider was to offer cut costs and to increase audience reach and significant subscriber base considering this
global, hybrid solutions, combining the best retention, while providing more localised figure has more than doubled in a year. We
of satellite and fibre capacity from several and targeted content. IPTV, with its can definitely call this a trend that is
operators, essentially furnishing a more customisable, experience-enhancing tools, moving in the right direction. Viewers in
effective model for channels in terms of cost opens a new avenue for the realisation of other countries are already following suit.
as well as coverage. this objective. Today’s television viewer, no matter
This was sufficient for a while, but with This presents a particular challenge for where they are in the world, expects access
the advent of IP the question became more telcos, who are still unfamiliar with the to the same content choices no matter what
complex. What can service providers offer quirks and intricacies of the broadcast provider he or she subscribes to (satellite,
channels in the new IPTV era? The answer, industry and the delivery of video. Video is cable, IPTV or Mobile TV) and wants his or
guide2iptv iptv 24 september 2008
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