By Brian Cappellani and Preston Gilmer

Communications service providers – telcos – are making major investments to move into the TV business. They decided, essentially, to invent IPTV along the way because, they’ve argued, it ultimately will deliver more personalization; integrated and interactive content; and advanced advertising options. Contemporaneously, cable operators, or MSOs, are pursuing technologies like OpenCable and Tru2Way aggressively over parallel digital cable and IP networks to deliver similar capabilities and benefits. As they compete, both CSPs and MSOs face similar challenges in enabling these targeted, interactive, integrated, and real-time capabilities. Unified subscriber visibility; the ability to orchestrate processes across product silos; and support for IP real-time service fulfillment will be necessary requirements for making it all work.

Where TV is Headed

Right now, IPTV is still trying to achieve parity with what digital cable already offers. Very quickly, however, the game is shifting toward more advanced video services that go beyond subscription models, mass market advertising and today’s set-top boxes. Interactivity and personalization are key next-step capabilities for video offerings. Providers want to enable more forms of on-demand entertainment, premium content, and more on-screen interactivity. They want to drive targeted advertising and promotions to more segmented audiences that are identified through granular data collection and business analytics. They also plan to roll out waves of new set-top boxes that can support multiple sessions, deliver detailed usage data over an IP connection, and support custom screen crawls and electronic program guides (EPGs), among other applications.