IP Television 10.1 2014 | Page 5

ip editorial_flannel 07/03/2014 08:33 Page 1 IP television INTERNATIONAL OPINION his is the tenth TV Connect show and what a PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Nick Snow [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Colin Mann [email protected] PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Nik Roseveare [email protected] ART EDITOR Steve Overbury [email protected] COLUMNISTS Vivek Couto Howard Greenfield CONTRIBUTORS Robert Briel - Amsterdam Dieter Brockmeyer - Frankfurt Gail Chiasson - Toronto David del Valle - Madrid Chris Dziadul Sotires Eleftheriou - Paris Barry Flynn Chris Forrester Philip Hunter Joe O’Halloran Farah Jifri Branislav Pekic - Rome SALES DIRECTOR Sanjeev Bhavnani [email protected] PUBLISHED BY Advanced Television Limited Bondway Commercial Centre 4th Floor, Unit 4.01 71 Bondway London SW8 1SQ T lot of megabytes have flowed through the video bridges over that time. One thing that has changed, several times, is the name of the event as it keeps up with the evolving shape of the sector. Once IP delivery meant IPTV as in IPTV World Forum, the original name of the exhibition. IPTV was all about telcomanaged networks providing television; IPTV essentially meant I Protect The Voice revenue, and incumbents introduced it – and the investment it required - often with a sense of reluctance, resenting the necessity to fight on payTV provider turf as those providers were expanding their offerings in telephony and broadband. Surprise, surprise: the telcos that succeeded were those that did embrace the new delivery platform as a genuine engine of opportunity and growth; Orange for example. Those whose wariness got the better of them are still playing catch up; BT for example. Meanwhile IP, oddly in some ways (after all it is merely a best-efforts means of delivery), has become accepted as ultimately the transport for all media, over all networks, to all devices. While its disadvantages in terms of required investment in bandwidth, compression, security and error checking are big, its advantages in terms of ubiquity, flexibility and – most important – interactivity are massive. In ten years, IP, or should we just say 'Connectivity', has come a long way. Many telcos are now major league media players. And they, and their erstwhile rival providers, are all challenged by global OTT pay-TV players enabled by IP Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] www.advanced-television.com PRINTED BY Headley Brothers Ltd The Invicta Press Queens Road Ashford Kent TN24 8HH, UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] [email protected] © Advanced Television Limited 2014. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. television. But there are still big issues around streaming standards, device compatibility, delivery capacity (both tec