I am a big fan of IP based technologies and count my vote if you believe every device will be reachable by an IP few years from now. However, when I read about IPTV in India, I am a bit disappointed by the underlying broadband infrastructure Indian telcos have upon which they will provide IP based TV. This said, am I telling that IPTV should never be deployed in India ? No. But the time is not ripe yet to subscribe to one unless you are an admirer of IPTV and willing to spend few extra bucks every month.
MTNL’s IPTV is available in Mumbai and Delhi so far I haven’t heard back from any of my readers or friends using the same. In Delhi they have mere 75 subscribers till date and expect to have a subscriber base of 500,000 in three years [Interesting ?]. Aksh OptiFibre has tied up with Star TV for content and will power MTNL’s IPTV users. Content providers may go soft to encourage this new distributin channel but later everything will be under TRAI’s CAS policy. IPTV service providers are trying to price it aggressively inline with Cable and DishTV but not many living rooms want to go the IPTV way just because of the Hype and are moving towards DishTV.
I feel IPTV will be in demand when service providers start offering content that is not readily available on DishTV or Cable TV. Say, Indian diaspora in the western world want on demand access to Mahabharat or Kyunki Saas Bhi Bahu Thi or archives of Indian cricket matches etc. So also Indians who have lived abroad would love to watch Friends, Sienfeld, Fox, CNN, etc and IPTV can bridge this gap. IPTV will be commercially viable when broadband becomes an utility in every Indian home.
Tags: Broadband India, IPTV India, DishTV India, Video On Demand
Hmmm… Interesting to know that IPTV has already started in India.
I’m inline with your analysis. I think I had also read somewhere that Indian govt. (I guess TRAI) defined Broadband as 256Kbps LOL.
In other Asian countries especially South Korea where broadband speeds are north of 8Mbps have not yet successfully implemented IPTV. Mobile networks are faster than the Indian standard of 256Kbps in other parts of Asia especially Japan and they enjoy TV on their mobile phones. I’m wondering how India is able to implement IPTV.
Hey In fact Airtel is launching IPTV sercives in India
I agree that IPTV is still at a nascent stage in India. However, I was surprised to see service providers ride the IPTV wave so early. However, it is the step in the right direction. IPTV can be delivered on a bandwidth of 2 mbps, with a mpeg 4 compression, which is good enough to start with. VOD and broadcast channels would be offered at first. However, the broadband infrastrucutre has to improve rapidly if they have to offer HDTV and the like.