Expanding horizons for IPTV
New trends in IPTV prove that TV can offer more than just traditional entertainment. A collaboration with the University of Melbourne in Australia is an example of how Ericsson is embracing high-speed broadband to create new opportunities and applications for its IPTV solution that benefit the business as well as verticals markets.
IPTV, which offers a premium TV service over a managed network, is growing rapidly although it is a relatively recent innovation. With IPTV, end users are no longer passive viewers, but are instead given control of what video content they view and when they view it. Sophisticated implementations even allow users to view content on their choice of fixed screens (TVs, PCs) or mobile screens (smartphones, tablets). This mobility, combined with rich content choice and high-definition quality, is proving popular, and not only among individual consumers looking to manage their home entertainment experience.
As well as delivering entertainment, IPTV also supports new forms of e-banking, e-business, e-education and e-government integration, creating new opportunities for telecommunication companies looking for new revenue streams beyond data and voice services.
In the education sector, the Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES) at the University of Melbourne has created a pilot IPTV service called UniTV in partnership with Ericsson. This pilot, the first IPTV service to be set up for educational purposes, could potentially be used to deliver streamed video lectures and on-demand tutorials to the TV sets of the university’s students and lecturers over their broadband connections.
In the January issue of Ericsson Business Review, Kate Cornick, Executive Director of IBES, said that, the pilot “supports the delivery of both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) content across a managed network to a standard retail 3D television.”
“The use of 3D imagery is likely to become increasingly popular, not just for the next generation of movies and computer games, but also in educational settings to assist with the visualization and manipulation of complex shapes, data sets and objects,” Cornick said.
“For example, 3D imagery can assist students to visualize a protein molecule and see the way it folds, or examine the intricacies of a piece of ancient Minoan pottery,”Cornick wrote. “Clearly, this mode of teaching and learning has important pedagogical implications, providing new ways to educate and inform students across a variety of skill sets and interests.”
Colin Goodwin, Strategic Marketing Manager at Region South East Asia & Oceania in Melbourne, says: “Despite the millions of IPTV subscribers around the world, the market is a long way from the saturation point. As faster broadband access networks are built, especially Fiber to the X, it is projected that the number of IPTV subscribers will grow dramatically.”
Globally, there are currently around 1.2 billion TV households, and about one third of these, or 430 million, are digital. RNCOS, a leading global market research and information analysis company, estimated in a report released in February 2011 that the number of global IPTV subscribers would rise to around 109 million by 2014. RNCOS also stated that, while Europe is currently the world’s largest and most active IPTV market, it will eventually be overtaken by the Asia-Pacific region, whose growth will be driven by an increase in broadband penetration.
Ericsson is attending the IPTV World Forum 2011, March 22-24, in London, and will be blogging about future IPTV trends. To learn more, visit IPTV World Forum 2011 and visit our End-To-Endless Television homepage from March 22.
IPTV, which offers a premium TV service over a managed network, is growing rapidly although it is a relatively recent innovation. With IPTV, end users are no longer passive viewers, but are instead given control of what video content they view and when they view it. Sophisticated implementations even allow users to view content on their choice of fixed screens (TVs, PCs) or mobile screens (smartphones, tablets). This mobility, combined with rich content choice and high-definition quality, is proving popular, and not only among individual consumers looking to manage their home entertainment experience.
As well as delivering entertainment, IPTV also supports new forms of e-banking, e-business, e-education and e-government integration, creating new opportunities for telecommunication companies looking for new revenue streams beyond data and voice services.
In the education sector, the Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES) at the University of Melbourne has created a pilot IPTV service called UniTV in partnership with Ericsson. This pilot, the first IPTV service to be set up for educational purposes, could potentially be used to deliver streamed video lectures and on-demand tutorials to the TV sets of the university’s students and lecturers over their broadband connections.
In the January issue of Ericsson Business Review, Kate Cornick, Executive Director of IBES, said that, the pilot “supports the delivery of both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) content across a managed network to a standard retail 3D television.”
“The use of 3D imagery is likely to become increasingly popular, not just for the next generation of movies and computer games, but also in educational settings to assist with the visualization and manipulation of complex shapes, data sets and objects,” Cornick said.
“For example, 3D imagery can assist students to visualize a protein molecule and see the way it folds, or examine the intricacies of a piece of ancient Minoan pottery,”Cornick wrote. “Clearly, this mode of teaching and learning has important pedagogical implications, providing new ways to educate and inform students across a variety of skill sets and interests.”
Colin Goodwin, Strategic Marketing Manager at Region South East Asia & Oceania in Melbourne, says: “Despite the millions of IPTV subscribers around the world, the market is a long way from the saturation point. As faster broadband access networks are built, especially Fiber to the X, it is projected that the number of IPTV subscribers will grow dramatically.”
Globally, there are currently around 1.2 billion TV households, and about one third of these, or 430 million, are digital. RNCOS, a leading global market research and information analysis company, estimated in a report released in February 2011 that the number of global IPTV subscribers would rise to around 109 million by 2014. RNCOS also stated that, while Europe is currently the world’s largest and most active IPTV market, it will eventually be overtaken by the Asia-Pacific region, whose growth will be driven by an increase in broadband penetration.
Ericsson is attending the IPTV World Forum 2011, March 22-24, in London, and will be blogging about future IPTV trends. To learn more, visit IPTV World Forum 2011 and visit our End-To-Endless Television homepage from March 22.
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