IPTV beginning in India – thanks to MTNL

As reported by Financial times, IPTV is coming to India as a trial service from MTNL.

According to news, MTNL will be entering into Internet Protocol TV sector with some commercial tie-ups with Start TV (leading TV channel), Prasar Bharti (national media org body), Zee TV (leading Indian TV channel), Sony Entertainment (another TV channel), among others.

Now a brief about IPTV from wikipedia

It is a system where a digital television service is delivered using the Internet Protocol over a network infrastructure, which may include delivery by a broadband connection (of course it is only broadband in India right now). For residential users, this type of service is often provided in conjunction with Video on Demand and may be part of combined Internet services such as Web access and VoIP, where it may then be called Triple Play (not right now in India but will be there, very soon), and is typically supplied by a broadband operator using a single infrastructure. In addition to the three services i.e. voice, video and data, mobility is also offered, it is called a Quad Play. In businesses IPTV may be used to deliver television content over corporate LAN’s and business networks. Perhaps a simpler definition of IPTV would be television content that, instead of being delivered through traditional formats and cabling, is received by the viewer through the technologies used for computer networks.

There are 2 architectures of IPTV – Free & Fee based. Yes you heard it right, Free. The advantages which IPTV include are Interactivity, Video On Demand, Better Compression, Triple Play (telephony, data – that is Internet & video), Quad Play (Triple Play with mobile telephony) & Converged Services.

Further news defines IPTV as
television service delivered over Internet Protocol (IP) via broadband. IPTV also opens the door for `Triple Play’–a bundled offering of voice, video and data.

Right now, there are no regulations in place in country for IPTV and according to a senior TRAI official, “The commercial launch of IPTV will be possible soon as regulations regarding content, programme code and other governing guidelines are getting in place.”

Presently the service will be launched in New Delhi & Mumbai but news papers reports that Bharti is also conducting trial runs in GGN with test signals from STAR Plus, ESPN and Zee TV. I have started thinking of being a part of this trial run 🙂
I am excited about IPTV entrance in India…that too when still I am 2 to 25!

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