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Rodolfo La Maestra IPTV Part 2 - The Groups, Forums and Statistics
By Rodolfo La Maestra
Senior Technical Director
Posted on September 25, 2007
Category: Technology
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The following article is the latest in the IPTV series by Rodolfo La Maestra. Other articles in this series are as follows:

IPTV Groups

In April 2006, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) created a focus group on IPTV to coordinate and promote the development of global IPTV standards with the following agenda:

  • Define IPTV
  • Review and perform gap analysis of existing standards and ongoing works
  • Coordinate existing standardization activities
  • Harmonize the development of new standards
  • Encourage interoperability with existing systems where possible

Ericsson, Matsushita's Panasonic, Philips, Samsung Electronics, Siemens AG, Sony, AT&T, Telecom Italia, and France Telecom, to work on a single IPTV standard, created an Open IPTV Forum.

The forum is open to other companies to join, supports IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) for unified Internet service delivery, and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA). The group was planning to complete technology requirements in Sep 06 and initial specifications by Dec 06.

International Telecommunications Union (ITU)


IPTV - the Numbers

According to a recent market projection made by Gartner, by 2010 48.8 million households worldwide will subscribe to IPTV services from telecom carriers.

IPTV subscribers will double in number during 2007 to 13.3 million, which is expected to generate 13.2 billion of revenue, from the 6.4 million subscribers in 2006 who generated $872 million of revenue.

According to Gartner, one positive effect of incorporating an IPTV service into the lineup is that it would help a carrier retain current voice and broadband customers, (and coincidentally, that was actually declared by one of the Telcos that implemented IPTV, further below).

In my opinion, it could also be negative to the carrier if the IPTV service starts to show technical flaws like video breakups, program interruptions, etc.

A combination of reasons could produce a flawed service, from limited bandwidth, to hardware choices, software bugs, or simply because the technology might not be mature enough yet for the particular implementation, which was the case with several Telcos mentioned further below.


IPTV Implementation Growth
 200520062007200820092010(CAGR) 2010
Total IPTV subscribers (in millions)3.26.413.324.736.348.872.8%
Growth (% year over year)139.4102.5108.185.546.734.5 
Source: Gartner Dataquest (August 2006)


From another research source, Infonetics Research projected worldwide IPTV subscribers doubling up yearly between 2005-09, totaling 68.9 million by 2009.

"IPTV is still in the 'kick the tire' phase, with service providers doing trials rather than mass deployments, but there's no question that IPTV is going mainstream," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband and IPTV at Infonetics.

According to a forecast from iSuppli published by CED in March 07, worldwide revenues to be generated from Pay TV shows that IPTV services would grow more rapidly than the same services from cable and satellite.


Worldwide Subscription Revenues for Pay TV - Satellite, Cable and IPTV
 2004200520062007200820092010
Satellite31,390$35,190$40,263$45,220$50,067$54,929$58,751
Cable$68,808$73,692$78,178$83,586$88,460$92,469$96,074
IPTV$419$681$1,592$4,413$9,619$15,998$23,466
Total Pay Television$100,616$109,563$120,032$133,219$148,146$163,397$178,291
(Numbers millions of U.S. dollars)
Source: iSuppli Corp., February 2007 as published by CED

In the next article in this series, I will discuss the different ways in which IPTV is being implemented as well as some companies who already have working models in place.

Next Article: IPTV Part 3 - The Methods and a Working Technology

Posted by Rodolfo La Maestra, September 25, 2007 07:46 AM

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About Rodolfo La Maestra

Rodolfo La Maestra is the Senior Technical Director at HDTV Magazine and participated in the HDTV vision since the late 1980's. In the late 1990's, he began tracking all HDTV consumer equipment, and since 2002 he authors the annual HDTV Technology Review report covering HDTVs, Hi-def DVD, content providers, broadcast, cable, satellite, government, standards, connectivity, content protection, H/DTV tuners and DVRs, etc. In addition Rodolfo has authored a variety tutorials, books, and educative articles for HDTV Magazine, DVDetc, and HDTVetc Magazines, Veritas et Visus Newsletter, Display Search, and served as technical consultant/editor for the "Reference Guide" and the "HDTV Glossary of Terms" for HDTVetc and HDTV Magazines. In 2004, he began recording a weekly HDTV technology program for MD Cable television, which by 2006 reached the rating of second most viewed by the public, here is the opening episode.

Rodolfo's background encompasses Electronic Engineering, Computer Science, and Audio and Video Electronics, over 4,700 hours of professional training, a BS in Computer and Information Systems, and over thirty professional and post-graduate certifications, some from American, George Washington, and MIT Universities. Rodolfo was also Computer Science professor for over 700 students in five institutions between 1966-1973 in Argentina, for IBM, Burroughs, and Honeywell mainframes. After 38 years of computer systems career, Rodolfo retired in 2003 as Chief of Systems Development from the Inter-American Development Bank where he directed 65 software-development computer professionals, supporting member countries in north/central/south America 24x7.

In parallel, from 1998 he helped the public with his other career of audio/video electronics. Rodolfo started with hi-end audio in the early 60’s and merged with Home Theater video, multichannel audio, widescreen laser disc, anamorphic DVD, 16x9 NTSC displays, HDTV, Hi-def DVD, IPTV, HDMI, and 2.35:1 Cinemascope HD Home Theater over the past 40+ years.

When HDTV started airing in November 1998, he was an early adopter of HDTV and realized that the technology as implemented would overwhelm regular consumers due to its complexity, and it certainly does even today. Rodolfo then launched his HDTV mission of educating and helping consumers understand the complexity, the challenge, and the beauty of the technology, so the public learns to appreciate HDTV not just as another television.