Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Five Reason Why IPTV Will Succeed

TV over the internet protocol (IPTV) is taking off with good reason. According to analyst firm nforma Telecoms & Media, the global number of subscribers grew to 12.3 milion in 2007, led by Europe and Asia. In the U.S. the market grew by 1 million subscribers.

Strategy Analytics has different numbers but is equally bullish on IPTV. The company says revenues for IPTV in the US were at $694 million last year, and expects the market to grow to a whopping $14 billion by 2012.

Today Verizon and AT&T are driving most of the growth for IPTV, but expect more telecoms to launch services soon.

Telecoms have an advantage over cable because their digital networks have been optimized for IP almost from the start, where as cable is still transitioning from analog to digital. The phone companies know all about voice and data over IP, so they have a technology advantage.

Interactive advertising and TV will be soon be a key differentiator, and IPTV is a better platform for delivering and tracking content. Telecoms can develop applications that can simultaneously be delivered to TVs and computers, maximizing their profit potential

Finally, IPTV can be a value added service that matches better with existing data and voice services.

I'm not counting out Comcast at all -- the company may well become dominant if it buys an Internet video company or even TiVo and figures out how to put content from the LCD to the big screen in the living room.

Posted By John Gartner at 12:27 PM
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