DD:Monday, 12 June 2006
Region ready for IPTV
by Alex Ritman
Most regional service providers are ready to start deploying TV over broadband, otherwise known as IPTV, according to Gert-Jan Schenk, vice president of operations at Juniper Networks. “There are lots and lots of opportunities for telcos,” he claims, adding that the population makeup in the region could well be a driving factor. “There are plenty of foreigners here, either living here or having bought holiday homes. They may well want to watch television programmes from back home and with the time differences IPTV could have large demand.” With liberalisation, Schenk also says it is important for operators to differentiate themselves over the competition, and extra services such as IPTV, are certainly one way to do that.
However, it is not just important for an operator to deploy the infrastructure needed. “They need to sign agreements with content providers as well,” says Schenk, indicating that in order to provide the services to customers operators need to tie up contracts with the broadcasting companies and other content deliverers.
And Schenk believes that the solutions from Juniper offer IPTV delivery with assured quality. “We’re working with several partners in IPTV,” he says, listing Siemens, Ericsson, Lucent and Avaya. “We also have Microsoft as an alliance partner, and they are obviously very big in the IPTV realm. What this alliance means is that when somebody uses our combined technology they get a guaranteed quality of service.”
