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IPTV – Can it Really Fly in Asia?
IPTV has been a hot topic in the telecom world for quite some time. But is it simply vendor hype designed to sell more gear, or is there real customer demand for next generation TV service via broadband?
It’s a fair question. Some observers are sceptical about IPTV’s prospects in the unique Asian environment. In China and some SE Asian countries, pirated DVDs with movies can be bought for less than USD2 – while the titles are showing in the theatres. Also, in the Asian countries where very high speed broadband is most popular, and thus most ready for IPTV services, illegal P2P content downloads are hugely popular. To complicate the picture further, TV broadcast regulations in countries such as Korea and China are still not completely ready for full IPTV services.
Given this background, how can any Asian telco make money from IPTV?
For starters, you don’t have to look far to see that IPTV, despite these hurdles, is taking off. I am proof of this – I live in Hong Kong and today enjoy one of the world’s most successful IPTV services. It is PCCW’s now broadband TV service, which has about 500 thousand subscribers. At home my family enjoys broadcast and on-demand channels with DVD-quality over my DSL line. Just this month, PCCW announced the introduction of its video on demand (VoD), a service which just happens to be powered by Juniper Networks SDX-300 and Broadband Service Router (BSR).
IPTV service is not unique to Hong Kong. Taiwan, Thailand and Japan also now have video services over broadband, with differing levels of penetration and success. Countries like China, Australia, New Zealand and Korea are also coming on board, some are waiting for regulations, and others are in field trials.
This momentum is building in the face of strong competition from broadcast and cable television. And the momentum is built on a number of clever strategies and considerations in the network architecture. Let’s look at the first of these today: the service mix.
More Than Just Broadcast TV
When we look at some of the more successful IPTV deployments, such as those at FastWeb in Italy and PCCW in Hong Kong, we see a common winning formula – a range of services instead of just a me-too broadcast TV service. For example, FastWeb provides a range of voice, broadcast TV and VoD services over its xDSL and FTTx networks. And PCCW offers channel-on-demand, VoD and value-added services such as on-screen movie-ticket purchases over its ADSL network. The strategy is simple and effective – use basic broadcast services with attractive pricing to ramp up the subscriber base, and use services like VoD to increase ARPU.
A mix of services can be a great way to provide differentiated customer value. Yes, you can still get a pirated DVD very cheaply, but a DVD cannot match a wide range of content available exactly when you want it. Also, many end-users still enjoy channel surfing – not everyone knows exactly what they want to watch when they turn on the TV. Many telcos are also exploring some innovative services based on the interactivity of the IPTV over the broadband network, such as e-voting, interactive TV, interactive game shows and so on. It is fair to say that IPTV services will not stop at just broadcast and VoD services alone. These are just the beginning of the evolution of IPTV.
Be careful, though. Such a multi-service approach demands networks that can offer a range of services. There are proposed architectures that may promise to deliver a certain service like broadcast TV. But when it comes to adding new services like VoD, they can often run into issues like management/provisioning complexity at multiple network points, bandwidth allocation, QoS enforcement, complexity in the CPE, security challenges, etc. A flexible architecture that can cater for service evolution is paramount to long term success. What Juniper believes in is exactly this model, and our IPTV architecture based on the Single Edge model leveraging the strengths of the BSR enables a proven OPEX-optimized model for multiservice delivery.
Serving Niche Market At Scale
Legacy TV has historically served the mass market. IPTV is different - it is all about personalization and providing service on demand. Letting end users customize their TV service mix when they want is a key to success. Take me, for example: I am an NBA basketball fan but not so much a soccer fan. Given the choice, I would rather subscribe to the NBA channel alone rather than to a package of sport channels, which is typically what cable networks offer. Smart IPTV providers like Hong Kong’s PCCW offer channels-on-demand so their customers can dynamically subscribe to a particular channel via the remote control.
There’s a stage beyond this, too – harnessing the intelligence of personalization. IPTV providers can also provide highly targeted commercials, which means that a company such as Nike can promote its new models just to sneaker lovers. It means you, the audience, get to watch ads that mean something to you, and Nike doesn’t waste money on advertising to people who couldn’t care less about sneakers.
This level of personalization has considerable implications for the network. Personalization can mean different levels of service delivery per subscriber. For example, if you subscribe to a broadcast TV service with a 4Mbps streaming rate and all of sudden you order a HDTV VOD requiring an 8Mbps service, the bandwidth and QOS policy on your interface may need to dynamically change or else the service mix may not be optimally delivered. Thus, the network needs to be service-aware and to dynamically adjust its policies depending on the personalization of the service. That’s why the Juniper Networks SDX-300 service delivery platform, which has been deployed in over 50 telcos worldwide, enables the network to be service-aware and thus provide more network intelligence in a dynamic fashion.
User Experience Assurance
Pirated DVDs are cheap but they have a weakness – their quality. A quality IPTV experience – an “assured user experience” - throughout the delivery time is another key to getting Asian customers to choose IPTV instead of DVDs.
However, the service mix and personalization run counter to an assured user experience. Dynamic policies based on service subscription help, but they can solve the congestion only at the subscriber level. For example, just imagine Brokeback Mountain becomes a big hit on VOD because of a sudden increase in popularity as a result of its Oscar awards. The overwhelming demand for this one title could quickly overload the network and create congestion. If the access network can accommodate only 100 simultaneous views for Brokeback Mountain in one community, the 101st user can potentially degrade the experience for all of the 101 viewers points along the delivery path and, when there is insufficient resource to serve a particular request, the network can intelligently turn down the request to maintain the user experience for all the existing subscribers of a service. The Juniper SDX-300 platform has this CAC function and IPTV providers around the world, like PCCW, use it to guarantee the IPTV user experience in a highly dynamic environment.
Service Security
High quality, personalized services are two keys to successful IPTV. But a profitable IPTV service is worth nothing if it can be hacked at will. While cable networks are closed and therefore vulnerable to attacks only with customized tools, IPTV is wide open because it is based on a more open architecture using IP. It is potentially open to exploitation by DOS/DDOS attacks, worms/virus, and backdoor attacks on network elements like video servers by simply using toolsets commonly found on the Internet.
Another emerging trend is the market’s expansion from e-commerce (on the Web) to mcommerce (mobile) and now to t-commerce (TV). To use our sports shoe analogy, a TV show might feature the leading actor wearing a particular Nike sneaker. If you clicked on the sneaker, you could be taken to a commerce screen with the option to purchase that particular Nike model. This scenario may not be too far away, so long as adequate network security protects the t-commerce transaction, in the same way e-commerce has always needed strong protection.
Thus, IPTV security is now becoming an important issue for providers. Juniper Networks is aware of this and is addressing this crucial requirement with well-proven security features built into the Juniper infrastructure portfolio – along with the Juniper NetScreen firewall appliances, IDP platforms, the DX portfolio and the rest of the Juniper NetScreen security solution set.
Doing IPTV the Right Way
Doing IPTV the right way means more than simply adding video servers to your existing broadband network. Some solution providers propose an entirely new architecture to offer broadcast TV in an optimized way, but ignore the need for personalized services. This approach may look attractive in the beginning, when only a broadcast TV service is offered, but it often requires multiple network overlays and the management nightmare that follows when multiple service offerings are rolled out. Juniper’s service delivery architecture, now selected by 12 operational IPTV networks worldwide, is different. It is designed for multi-service delivery with an opex-optimized model that helps IPTV providers deliver a broad service mix, personalization, assured user experience, and service security.
The solution to this problem is Call Admission Control (CAC), which acts much like a doorman at a popular night club. CAC tracks the network resources available at the potential congestion.
Links & References
Andrew Ma is Head of Solutions Marketing, Juniper Networks, APAC.
It’s a fair question. Some observers are sceptical about IPTV’s prospects in the unique Asian environment. In China and some SE Asian countries, pirated DVDs with movies can be bought for less than USD2 – while the titles are showing in the theatres. Also, in the Asian countries where very high speed broadband is most popular, and thus most ready for IPTV services, illegal P2P content downloads are hugely popular. To complicate the picture further, TV broadcast regulations in countries such as Korea and China are still not completely ready for full IPTV services.
Given this background, how can any Asian telco make money from IPTV?
For starters, you don’t have to look far to see that IPTV, despite these hurdles, is taking off. I am proof of this – I live in Hong Kong and today enjoy one of the world’s most successful IPTV services. It is PCCW’s now broadband TV service, which has about 500 thousand subscribers. At home my family enjoys broadcast and on-demand channels with DVD-quality over my DSL line. Just this month, PCCW announced the introduction of its video on demand (VoD), a service which just happens to be powered by Juniper Networks SDX-300 and Broadband Service Router (BSR).
IPTV service is not unique to Hong Kong. Taiwan, Thailand and Japan also now have video services over broadband, with differing levels of penetration and success. Countries like China, Australia, New Zealand and Korea are also coming on board, some are waiting for regulations, and others are in field trials.
This momentum is building in the face of strong competition from broadcast and cable television. And the momentum is built on a number of clever strategies and considerations in the network architecture. Let’s look at the first of these today: the service mix.
More Than Just Broadcast TV
When we look at some of the more successful IPTV deployments, such as those at FastWeb in Italy and PCCW in Hong Kong, we see a common winning formula – a range of services instead of just a me-too broadcast TV service. For example, FastWeb provides a range of voice, broadcast TV and VoD services over its xDSL and FTTx networks. And PCCW offers channel-on-demand, VoD and value-added services such as on-screen movie-ticket purchases over its ADSL network. The strategy is simple and effective – use basic broadcast services with attractive pricing to ramp up the subscriber base, and use services like VoD to increase ARPU.
A mix of services can be a great way to provide differentiated customer value. Yes, you can still get a pirated DVD very cheaply, but a DVD cannot match a wide range of content available exactly when you want it. Also, many end-users still enjoy channel surfing – not everyone knows exactly what they want to watch when they turn on the TV. Many telcos are also exploring some innovative services based on the interactivity of the IPTV over the broadband network, such as e-voting, interactive TV, interactive game shows and so on. It is fair to say that IPTV services will not stop at just broadcast and VoD services alone. These are just the beginning of the evolution of IPTV.
Be careful, though. Such a multi-service approach demands networks that can offer a range of services. There are proposed architectures that may promise to deliver a certain service like broadcast TV. But when it comes to adding new services like VoD, they can often run into issues like management/provisioning complexity at multiple network points, bandwidth allocation, QoS enforcement, complexity in the CPE, security challenges, etc. A flexible architecture that can cater for service evolution is paramount to long term success. What Juniper believes in is exactly this model, and our IPTV architecture based on the Single Edge model leveraging the strengths of the BSR enables a proven OPEX-optimized model for multiservice delivery.
Serving Niche Market At Scale
Legacy TV has historically served the mass market. IPTV is different - it is all about personalization and providing service on demand. Letting end users customize their TV service mix when they want is a key to success. Take me, for example: I am an NBA basketball fan but not so much a soccer fan. Given the choice, I would rather subscribe to the NBA channel alone rather than to a package of sport channels, which is typically what cable networks offer. Smart IPTV providers like Hong Kong’s PCCW offer channels-on-demand so their customers can dynamically subscribe to a particular channel via the remote control.
There’s a stage beyond this, too – harnessing the intelligence of personalization. IPTV providers can also provide highly targeted commercials, which means that a company such as Nike can promote its new models just to sneaker lovers. It means you, the audience, get to watch ads that mean something to you, and Nike doesn’t waste money on advertising to people who couldn’t care less about sneakers.
This level of personalization has considerable implications for the network. Personalization can mean different levels of service delivery per subscriber. For example, if you subscribe to a broadcast TV service with a 4Mbps streaming rate and all of sudden you order a HDTV VOD requiring an 8Mbps service, the bandwidth and QOS policy on your interface may need to dynamically change or else the service mix may not be optimally delivered. Thus, the network needs to be service-aware and to dynamically adjust its policies depending on the personalization of the service. That’s why the Juniper Networks SDX-300 service delivery platform, which has been deployed in over 50 telcos worldwide, enables the network to be service-aware and thus provide more network intelligence in a dynamic fashion.
User Experience Assurance
Pirated DVDs are cheap but they have a weakness – their quality. A quality IPTV experience – an “assured user experience” - throughout the delivery time is another key to getting Asian customers to choose IPTV instead of DVDs.
However, the service mix and personalization run counter to an assured user experience. Dynamic policies based on service subscription help, but they can solve the congestion only at the subscriber level. For example, just imagine Brokeback Mountain becomes a big hit on VOD because of a sudden increase in popularity as a result of its Oscar awards. The overwhelming demand for this one title could quickly overload the network and create congestion. If the access network can accommodate only 100 simultaneous views for Brokeback Mountain in one community, the 101st user can potentially degrade the experience for all of the 101 viewers points along the delivery path and, when there is insufficient resource to serve a particular request, the network can intelligently turn down the request to maintain the user experience for all the existing subscribers of a service. The Juniper SDX-300 platform has this CAC function and IPTV providers around the world, like PCCW, use it to guarantee the IPTV user experience in a highly dynamic environment.
Service Security
High quality, personalized services are two keys to successful IPTV. But a profitable IPTV service is worth nothing if it can be hacked at will. While cable networks are closed and therefore vulnerable to attacks only with customized tools, IPTV is wide open because it is based on a more open architecture using IP. It is potentially open to exploitation by DOS/DDOS attacks, worms/virus, and backdoor attacks on network elements like video servers by simply using toolsets commonly found on the Internet.
Another emerging trend is the market’s expansion from e-commerce (on the Web) to mcommerce (mobile) and now to t-commerce (TV). To use our sports shoe analogy, a TV show might feature the leading actor wearing a particular Nike sneaker. If you clicked on the sneaker, you could be taken to a commerce screen with the option to purchase that particular Nike model. This scenario may not be too far away, so long as adequate network security protects the t-commerce transaction, in the same way e-commerce has always needed strong protection.
Thus, IPTV security is now becoming an important issue for providers. Juniper Networks is aware of this and is addressing this crucial requirement with well-proven security features built into the Juniper infrastructure portfolio – along with the Juniper NetScreen firewall appliances, IDP platforms, the DX portfolio and the rest of the Juniper NetScreen security solution set.
Doing IPTV the Right Way
Doing IPTV the right way means more than simply adding video servers to your existing broadband network. Some solution providers propose an entirely new architecture to offer broadcast TV in an optimized way, but ignore the need for personalized services. This approach may look attractive in the beginning, when only a broadcast TV service is offered, but it often requires multiple network overlays and the management nightmare that follows when multiple service offerings are rolled out. Juniper’s service delivery architecture, now selected by 12 operational IPTV networks worldwide, is different. It is designed for multi-service delivery with an opex-optimized model that helps IPTV providers deliver a broad service mix, personalization, assured user experience, and service security.
The solution to this problem is Call Admission Control (CAC), which acts much like a doorman at a popular night club. CAC tracks the network resources available at the potential congestion.
Links & References
- http://www.juniper.net/company/presscenter/pr/2005/pr-051107a.html
- http://www.juniper.net/solutions/literature/white_papers/200105.pdf
- http://www.juniper.net/products/sdx/
- http://www.juniper.net/products/integrated/
- http://www.juniper.net/products/intrusion/
- http://www.juniper.net/products/appaccel/dca/dx.html
Andrew Ma is Head of Solutions Marketing, Juniper Networks, APAC. Related Links
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