IPTV in Pakistan
This post is first in a series in which IPTV services in Pakistan will be discussed. First an introduction to IPTV: in simple terms IPTV is television content that, instead of being delivered through traditional formats and cabling, is received by the viewer through the technologies (IP) used for computer networks. IPTV provides multimedia services via a broadband connection with the help of a set-top box (STB) which resembles a traditional cable box. A single connection (fiber optic, copper or cable) coming to your premise can serve phone, TV and Internet service - terms such as FTTH or FTTP are used when fiber optic cable is being used for higher bandwidth transmission.
Why IPTV? IPTV is an imporant piece of the Triple Play puzzle. Many telecom companies are using it to create a sticky bundle for customers, the idea is that if a customer gets all services from a provider he or she can be offered a better deal and therefore is less likely to switch providers. I, for one, use bundles at home and find it convenient to have one bill and one phone number for customer service.
Triple play is also great for offering enhanced and converged services (not all are feasible, though) such as :
• TV and video services such as video-on-demand (VoD), subscription, live TV channel lineup packaging and scheduling, and network-based digital video recorder capabilities
• Additional “blended” communications applications such as get an alert of phone call on your TV, text chat, live traffic information (even using your cell phone as a remote - seriously!)
• Personal media applications such as uploading of photographs and video clips and sharing of music and video content across multiple in-home devices
What is the situation of IPTV in Pakistan’s market today? It is all about broadband availability and affordability and till now Pakistan has miserably lagged behind on this. I am hopeful that things will change for better in the next 2-4 years. The policy and regulatory framework is set by PTA. Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) monitors and regulates the electronic media and it issues IPTV licneces as well. I know about the following companies which can/will offer IPTV: PTCL, Wateen and Nayatel. There is little information available about PTCL plans (see some discussion here) but it is likely that they will offer IPTV over DSL using technologies from various foreign vendors (see below); for Wateen I’ve previously written here. Recently Brain has also advertised limited launch of IPTV service.
According to some resources PTCL may launch IPTV service on 23rd March 2007 to pilot users -with a broader launch to 20,000 subscribers in the first half of this year. In terms of its strategy IPTV must be a top priority for PTCL. It all comes to execution and creating a value package. PTCL launch is supported by Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei and Irdeto, the Netherlands-based content security company. Huawei will provide the servers and set-top boxes (see Hua wei’s IPTV architecture below) and Irdeto will provide content security solution.
The Irdeto IPTV security solution integrated into the Huawei IPTV system provides for a full video product and service offering, including broadcast TV, video on demand, PVR and Time Shift TV. Within the Irdeto IPTV security framework, content is securely stored and distributed across any broadband IP network and the corresponding content rights can be managed on an individual subscriber and/or device basis.
World Situation of IPTV (source)
France tops the list, with 896,000 IPTV subscribers. Next are, in order, Hong Kong, Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Morocco, Russia, the United Kingdom and Sweden. Most of the world’s IPTV subscribers (68%) are in Western Europe, and 28% are in Asia. North America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa combined make up only 8% of the world’s 2.7 million IPTV subscribers.
Competition and the spread of pan-European carriers will likely drive continued growth in Western Europe and the recent removal of regulatory restrictions in Japan will probably drive IPTV growth there. U.S is likely to lag the rest of the world for some time.
Some of the related topics include - these will be discussed in more details in later posts:
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Additional Resources for IPTV:
We recently had Fiber Optic cables set up in our residential area and the PTCL has already started switching phone numbers to these lines on request. I wonder if they’re going to be used to offer IPTV licenses as well.
[...] This post is first in a series in which IPTV services in Pakistan will be discussed. First an introduction to IPTV: in simple terms IPTV is television content that, instead of being delivered through traditional formats and cabling, … – more – [...]
For IPTV to happen you need high speed speed interent connections among subscribers. Does Pakistan have a huge userbase with lots of bandwidth to spare?
Otto,
T1 Survey
No, Pakistan still lags behind in broadband. But recently a few companies have been aggressively investing in fiber and wimax deployments. The larger urban centers will benefit first (as in the US). These companies are betting that broadband rates will come down and people (esp businesses) will be willing to pay more for these services.
[...] IPTV may finally be poised to move into Pakistan. In the past, the country has lagged behind the rest of the region in broadband availability and especially in cost. It looks like the situation is set to change over the next few years due to policy and regulatory changes. Several companies are already in the process of preparing to offer the internet television services. [...]
Probably the biggest question still remains. Will PTCL be able to manage this project via Worst Outside Cable Plant Network. There is always noise problem on most of telephone lines. How could those Digital Services run on Twisted Copper Pairs. Or new UTP Cables be layed for each customer. This will cause excessive delay in running a service / launch of service and high costs. PTCL OSP is badly damaged due to Development works by CDGK in most of Karachi. Would these line be able to support these digital services?
Second thing is content for IPTV , customer don’t care what technology is deployed, as long as favourite channels are provided with reasonable quality of TV signal.
I have observed some customers donot pay rent to Cable operator if their favourite channels like Star Network is not televised . Such kind of issues could jeoprodized whole project.
Lets hope if this project goes well, and BroadBand Internet and other services are available at cheaper rates to general public and businesses.
[...] See the full post at the new site. [...]
We are happy about IPTV service through PTCL but we have some questions like who-many channels provide, Gujranwala is include this, and who-many time required PTCL for lanuching this service in all over Pakistan and what is the requirements of this system.
And I think PTCL give information about this service trough newspapers and electronics media to valuable custmers it is very good for PTCL and custmers.
We are so happy to lesten that PTCL will provide IPTV through his own line,i wish that to provde all chanals of the world.And i will ask that what were be requared for IPTV.
Hi, good news soon PTCL (last week of April) is launching IPTV, and trust me if your line is good condition that is with no noise then you will be watching upto 102 channels with superb quality. PTCL IPTV will bring VoD and much more. One interesting feature is to control what channels you want your kids can watch by locking unwanted channels. I am the one who was among the testing phase of PTCL IPTV and i found it very reliable.
As broadband DSL prices is already bring down by ptcl, the minimum DSL provide by PTCL is 512kbps will cost 1200/month, with these new prices I am sure lot of people can now afford broadband.