Key factors affecting the promotion of IPTV services

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Key factors affecting the promotion of IPTV services [Copy link]

In 2005, IPTV business received the most attention, but the news from all sides was not all positive. First, the radio and television departments, especially many local radio and television departments, held different views on IPTV business; second, the opinions of users, who determine whether IPTV business can succeed, have not been taken seriously, and there are few related reports; in addition, from a technical perspective, IPTV poses many challenges to the existing bearer network and terminals. Therefore, the next development trend of IPTV business is still difficult to predict. This article analyzes some key factors that affect the promotion of IPTV business.

IPTV is one of the future development directions of the telecommunications industry, but its industrialization still has a long way to go. At present, there are various concepts in the industry regarding the definition and technical standards of IPTV. This is mainly because IPTV is a new industry, its model and structure are still in the exploratory stage, and most systems are still in the testing and trial process; on the other hand, different companies, due to their own standpoints, intentionally or unintentionally emphasize one aspect of IPTV and ignore the other. For the industry, it is imperative to actively promote the research and formulation of industry standards according to market demand.

Since IPTV was launched in the 1990s, it has been in a small-scale development stage for a long time due to its immature external conditions. But now, with the formation of the global broadband industry chain and the continuous promotion of DSL technology, IPTV has entered a rapid development stage.

Favorable factors

The outstanding features of IPTV services are its interactivity and real-time nature. Through IPTV services, people can freely choose and customize broadband video content and TV programs, which completely changes the passive viewing mode of traditional TV and truly realizes the interactive network TV function of "on-demand viewing" anytime and anywhere. IPTV can still maintain or even surpass the image and sound quality of traditional TV by transmitting TV programs through broadband IP networks; it provides fast switching between different channels; and the terminal is mainly a TV, which maintains the traditional TV leaning back viewing habit.

IPTV has the following obvious advantages.

(1) The technical system is simple and has good interactivity. The development of IPTV services is mainly based on broadband IP networks, and the characteristic of IP networks is point-to-point interaction.

(2) With the help of the information resources of the Internet, there are abundant sources of graphic and text information.

(3) Thanks to the development of video compression technologies such as MPEG-4 and H.264, video encoding efficiency has been greatly improved, and the video quality under existing bandwidth conditions has been rapidly improved, effectively saving network bandwidth.

(4) There are a huge number of potential users. Compared with traditional TV technology, IPTV is a new technology that can transmit audio and video through broadband networks and enable human-computer interaction. Unlike Internet video, IPTV places more emphasis on TV terminals, which is a continuation of traditional cultural consumption habits. Behind this inheritance is the huge user base of hundreds of millions of families and the consumer psychology and consumption habits of amateur entertainment as the first choice. Therefore, IPTV services have the potential to become a basic telecommunications service and be accepted by the majority of consumers. At present, the number of TV users in my country exceeds 300 million. If TVs are converted into network terminals, even if only 20% of them are successfully converted, there will be 60 million users, which will undoubtedly bring huge profits to telecom operators.

All sectors are working hard to create a good growth environment for the development of IPTV. For example, some telecom operators have joined hands with chip manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, terminal manufacturers, and even content operators and content providers to carry out research and formulation of relevant enterprise standards. The huge performance improvements brought about by technological progress have made it possible for major obstacles to the basic technical level of IPTV to disappear. The rapid decline in the prices of systems, equipment, and terminals has greatly reduced the construction costs. From the perspective of user service consumption needs, it is undergoing an important transformation, that is, the demand for media and entertainment has begun to rise continuously. This trend has created a strong driving force for the birth and development of IPTV services. In addition, due to the continuous decline in voice service revenue, telecom equipment manufacturers and operators are looking for new growth points. The emergence of IPTV provides them with a rare development opportunity and stimulates great enthusiasm.

Disadvantages

Policy level

Policy uncertainty has always been the primary factor affecting the development of IPTV. IPTV involves three major areas: radio and television, telecommunications, and the Internet. The Ministry of Information Industry and the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television can formulate policies to manage different parts of the development of IPTV business. Who will lead the macro-development policy of IPTV business has always been a controversial topic. This is a challenge for the formulation and implementation of regulatory policies.

Although the integration of three networks is a global trend, and in reality, the radio and television departments have begun to provide Triple Play services by combining the functions of cable modems and set-top boxes under the name of digital TV, as a macro-policy decision, my country's institutional reform has not yet deepened to this point. The basic policy of separate operation of telecommunications and radio and television has not changed, and the dual division pattern may continue. Although the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television currently has the right to approve IPTV licenses, since telecommunications and radio and television belong to different industry management departments, it is still unclear in the short term how the policies between the industries will affect business development. In addition, the strict supervision of content by national regulatory agencies has not been relaxed. These restrictions in the macro-policy environment have affected the development of IPTV to a considerable extent.

Market Level

IPTV can make a profit by charging for content in foreign countries, but due to differences in national conditions, China cannot copy the mature experience of foreign countries. Content that attracts users, suitable rates and flexible marketing models are the three key factors in establishing a suitable market model for IPTV. Obviously, in my country, IPTV business currently lacks a suitable market model.

There are more than 100 million cable TV users in China. To attract users to use IPTV services, it is necessary to provide more valuable programs than ordinary TV and cable TV. However, the content providers for IPTV are precisely the radio and television departments that are hesitant about IPTV services, which makes it difficult to ensure that the content and quality of IPTV are attractive enough to users. To solve this problem, the key is for operators to cooperate extensively with departments with rich content sources and increase the participation of programs.

Chinese TV viewers are used to watching programs for free. The price of domestic cable TV is generally around 20 yuan per month, and the usage fee of digital TV is also lower than that of IPTV. Operators providing IPTV services are faced with a "dilemma": too low usage fees will not be able to support the healthy development of the business, while too high usage fees will cause users to switch to cable TV and digital TV. Another point is that in network construction, set-top boxes are currently the largest expense. If operators adopt the method of giving away set-top boxes for free, it will be difficult to bear the relevant costs in the long run, but charging users for equipment fees will greatly increase the entry threshold of the business. Therefore, if operators cannot solve the price problem well, it will restrict the popularization of IPTV.

In terms of business model, IPTV currently adopts a single model of "minimum usage fee + pay TV + value-added services", but this approach does not differentiate between different users. In fact, IPTV services are not just about broadcasting TV, but can also include more broadband value-added services, and the users it faces will cover different levels of society. Usually, information services maintain the basic income of the industry through 80% of users, and obtain profits from the development of the industry through 20% of users. This is no exception for IPTV services. How to provide different service models for different user groups is an issue that needs to be urgently addressed.

Technical aspects

Judging from the work that domestic operators have done, the technical environment has indeed improved significantly, but it still cannot solve the problems of flexible deployment of large-scale commercial networks and seamless interoperability of equipment or coding of all manufacturers. The technical standards of network platforms built in different places are different, which forces equipment and terminal manufacturers to provide multiple solutions and terminal products. This has greatly increased the network construction costs of operators and the R&D and production costs of equipment manufacturers. Therefore, standards have become the biggest trouble for the healthy growth of IPTV, and with the continuous development of IPTV services, standard issues will become more and more prominent. IPTV involves different technologies of various technical systems and covers a wide range. The relevant standardization organizations include at least the International Telecommunication Union Video Coding Experts Group (ITU VCEG), the International Standards Organization Moving Picture Experts Group (ISO/IEC MPEG), the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), the Digital Audio/Video Consortium (DAVIC), the Interactive Television Alliance (ITV), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Advanced Audio/Video Standards Group (AVS), the Television Standards Forum (TV Anytime), the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and the China Radio, Film and Television Standards Committee, but none of them can systematically and comprehensively cover this field, thus forming an unprecedentedly complex situation, which is not conducive to large-scale interoperability and promotion.

In addition, there are also many challenges from the perspective of program source content storage and distribution, service bearer network technology, encoding and decoding technology, and security encryption technology.

The first challenge is the scalability of program source storage capacity and structure. Content storage technology is a key technology for IPTV. Currently, most operators use existing local storage devices to meet the needs of IPTV services, but the rapid growth of service content is rapidly consuming these resources. Since the cost of storage devices accounts for a considerable proportion of the entire IPTV system investment, this problem must be solved by establishing a distributed storage network, but the industry has not yet proposed a mature solution.

At the same time, the capacity required by IPTV is several to dozens of times the existing broadband access capacity. The large-scale opening of IPTV services will pose a great challenge to the capacity and structure of the existing network. Network multicast capability is also a challenge. The multicast capabilities of switches, routers and DSLAMs on existing metropolitan area networks vary, making it difficult to achieve full-network multicast capabilities.

The second challenge is from the service bearer network. When new coding technologies such as MPEG4 or H.264 are used, DVD effects can be obtained at a bandwidth of 1 to 2 Mbit/s. To meet the requirements of IPTV services, the user access bandwidth must reach at least 2 to 3 Mbit/s. Currently, ADSL usually provides an access rate of 512 kbit/s to 2 Mbit/s. Although it can theoretically reach a downstream rate of 8 Mbit/s, it is restricted by many factors such as lines and distance in actual environments. However, the transformation of broadband networks requires huge costs. It is undoubtedly a fantasy to expect network operators who have not yet found a specific profit model from Internet TV operations to complete network transformation in the short term.

The third challenge is the video coding and decoding technology. Currently, the coding standards used for IPTV technology are mainly MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, VC-1, and AVS. Among them, only MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 are mature and supported by a large number of chip manufacturers. H.264 and VC-1 are supported by only a small number of chip manufacturers, and the AVS standard is not supported by any chip manufacturer yet.

IPTV faces the problem of coding standards, and coding is directly related to decoding, which in turn affects set-top boxes. One of the main reasons why no manufacturer has mass-produced IP set-top boxes is that there is no definite standard support. MPEG-4 is currently a widely used coding standard, but the decoders of MPEG-4 are not compatible among manufacturers, and each manufacturer has its own "private definition". At present, each manufacturer only focuses on its own small market, rather than working together to expand the market, which has become a major obstacle to the industrialization of IPTV. The poor industrialization foundation and the lack of unified standards have determined the limited market space for MPEG-4. With the merger of the two video coding working groups of ISO and ITU, H.264 has become a common new standard. Unlike in the past, H.264 is a unified standard with clear regulations on decoding compatibility, and can achieve DVD quality at a rate of 1Mbit/s, with very superior performance, but there are still not many chips that support H.264.

In addition to technical factors, the selection of coding standards also needs to consider patent fees. Compared with the past, MPEG-LA has reduced patent fees for decoders, but now it has begun to increase patent fees for encoders. If video program operators provide video programs using MPEG-4, H.264, or AVC standards, they will also need to pay a franchise fee, that is, MPEG-LA will charge operators based on parameters such as programs, subscribers, and the number of local transmitters, with a maximum of US$3.5 million per operator per year. In addition, end users also need to pay MPEG-LA a fee of US$0.04 per program, which will be collected by the operator, included in the charging cost, and ultimately passed on to the user. In comparison, the patent fee for the domestic AVS standard is quite low.

Another major challenge is the security of the service, especially the security of the content. The security of IPTV services includes all levels from the network to the terminal, from the service platform to the content. Digital rights management fundamentally protects audio and video content and requires authorization to access. Digital rights management encrypts video content and publishes it through the IPTV platform. After receiving the program, users cannot directly decode and watch it. They must be authorized by the digital rights management system before they can decrypt and decode it. The standards of digital rights management involve authorization language standards, encryption standards, key management standards and architecture, etc. At present, there is no unified standard suitable for operators to adopt. The most attractive part of IPTV services is content, but the lack of content has always been a thorny problem. IPTV content mainly comes from three sources: radio and television, the Internet and content providers. The lack of broadband content makes telecom operators very eager to cooperate with the radio and television industry, which has a large amount of content, but policies have become an insurmountable barrier. It is currently difficult to obtain enough IPTV content from radio and television in my country, which depends on the further opening of policies.

　　The road to IPTV business is full of thorns

Analyzing and summarizing the above situations, it is not difficult to see that the road to promoting IPTV business in my country is indeed full of thorns.

Profit model. Currently, there is a conflict of interest between IPTV and digital TV, and the free operation model of the Internet has also brought an impact on IPTV. Who will pay for IPTV? In addition, free TV programs, cheap pirated discs, and large-capacity BT downloads have devoured a large amount of IPTV consumption demand. Just imagine who will spend a sum of money every month to buy something that is not urgently needed or can be obtained for free? On the contrary, most TV programs abroad are charged, and intellectual property protection is strong, which provides opportunities for the development of IPTV. Regarding the profitability of IPTV, another problem is that the investment recovery period of IPTV is difficult to predict.

Standards dispute. Currently, MPEG-4 and H.264 are both foreign standards, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, and it is difficult to distinguish between them. Although AVS is a domestic standard, it is not yet mature. In the context of the country's encouragement of independent innovation, it is expected that the country will give policy support, but it is similar to the 3G standards dispute. Although IPTV will not become the next 3G (Shanghai Media Group has already obtained a license), they share the same fate.

Regulatory confusion. How to resolve the conflict of interests between the radio and television departments and the telecommunications departments? After Quanzhou IPTV was stopped, Zhejiang Radio and Television banned IPTV throughout the province. Where should IPTV go? What is the possibility of unified regulation?

Service stability. The characteristics of IP networks determine their inherent deficiencies in carrying television signals - bandwidth contention and congestion, making it difficult to provide television-level real-time, jitter-free, and uninterrupted programs.

In addition, it faces obstacles such as user habits, operation and network upgrade costs, and lack of content. Based on this, we can analyze IPTV rationally. In fact, the operators' preference for IPTV stems from their frustration with the monthly Internet subscription model and their desire to break the limitation of the number of computer terminals and strive to find ways to increase revenue. However, fundamentally speaking, terminals are not the bottleneck affecting the development of broadband. Terminal replacement is just the wishful thinking of operators, and the lack of Internet content is the bottleneck restricting the development of broadband services. The real significance of IPTV to broadband is to enrich Internet application content and to help operators develop and lock in broadband users. It should be said that IPTV is indispensable in the future development of broadband services. However, IPTV will trigger competition between telecom broadband and cable broadband, and the competition between telecom and radio and television will eventually focus on broadband. The focus of competition will undoubtedly be on tariffs, which will inevitably lead to chaos in the market structure and ultimately lead to a lose-lose situation.

Therefore, as far as the relationship between telecommunications and radio and television is concerned, cooperation is the only win-win option at present. (Cai Junjie Zhang Yuanjin)

(Editor: He Xianfeng)