Andre Oppermann wrote:
Very interesting article about Micro$soft's half-baked IPTV solution.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/01/ms_iptv_strategy_in_tatters/
Explains in clear technical words why Swisscom's attempt at IPTV is
broken and delayed yet another year, if it will ever fly.
I don't actually find it as clear as that, yes there is some good info
but I do think some stuff is lacking in there. This is my 2 cents to add
to the mix.
October 2003, during Telecom 2003 the initial Swisscom/M$ deal was
announced. In those days there was a major initial issue, codec quality
and bandwidth usage. M$ has done a great job with the VC-1/VC-9/VM9
codec. Note that VC-1 is the SMTPE standardised version of the VC-9/WM9
video codec.
As for H.264 AVC (MPEG-4 part 10) it was still far away from being
ratified by the ITU so VC-1 was the only option if you wanted to has SD
quality at @ 1Mbps rate which is the intial focus for carriers and
therefore be able to deploy over the existing ADSL network(s) and
provide a high(er) penetration rate of the service.
VDSL2 (just standardised for those that missed it) was under dev but
again no one could count on that there and then. And the point for the
carrier is to make cash and more cash, so better off selling the service
twice, once as an SD feed with more choice, PVR options and so one. Then
again as an HD feed using the new VDSL2 infrastructure and a remarketing
of the product. Even with LCD/Plasma sales growing fast, the penetration
rate of "HD Ready" (aka, min res of 720 lines versus 525 for PAL) is
still limited and is only reaching low enough prices for the mass
consumer market (most owners of LCD/Plasma/DLP screens/beamers have a
800x600 res).
So simply working out on those 2 "small" facts, when Swisscom decided to
work on this it did (IMHO) seem like a good option, a pseudo one stop
shop, M$ providing to support some of the pain (most likely for a big
chunk of cash but that was also renegociated versus the marketing around
the M$/Swisscom agreement and all the other details I'll exclude from
this thread for the sake of the reader's sanity)
Last but not least, Alcatel as dropped it's IPTV plans to partner with
M$, so they can now all work together since Swisscom was first to sign
on with M$ and Alcatel for the VDSL2 platform (AFAIK). Think of the cost
savings for those deals and the shareholders joy on the earnings.
Today, the other carriers are either "small" enough to decide to do
their own integration or entered the arena after the first experiences
were made and therefore some of the painful choices made by others could
be prevented. Now that H.264 AVC has been approved and the the first
silicon vendors are pushing end user devices chips (Sigma Designs, ATI,
etc...) and 1st gen realtime encoders (Tandberg, Envivo, etc...), M$ is
not the only one on the market that can provide a solution for the video
bandwidth.
Channel surfing, EPG issues, VOD distribution models, integration into
OSS/BBS, provisioning models, new IP/MPLS backbone. There is a lot going
on at Swisscom that can explain the delay beyond what is actually
mentioned in the press release. The only thing I'm sure about, they
want/need VDSL2 and their service available for mid 2006 for the World
Cup that will be broadcasted in HD, that is the one killer app they are
most likely chasing (as all other broadcasters) in order to demo and get
fans/early adopters to purchase the service and have something that no
one else is providing in the Swiss market (on a large scale).
Thomas
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