Pace Micro Technology: IPTV White Paper

IPTV continues to emerge as a serious competing technology to digital cable, satellite and terrestrial television. Only now are we starting to see major telcos and ISPs engaged in implementing IPTV rollouts and some countries - such as Italy, France and China, have established high volume customer bases. Compared with cable, satellite broadcasters, it is still relatively small, (less than 2m at the end of 2005), and the 10 million subscriber milestone will only be met at the end of 2007.

Author: Mark Rooney, Head of IPTV

The challenges faced by IPTV operators to compete successfully with cable, satellite and terrestrial broadcasters will be considerable. Moreover, the latter group will not remain still, introducing IP elements themselves into hybrid boxes to increase interactivity and neutralise the advantage IPTV has in this area.

This dynamism will doubtless generate considerable excitement over the coming years as IPTV operators respond to these challenges by embracing future technologies and using their inherent IP nature to enhance the entire customer viewing and listening pleasure. 

This paper discusses what IPTV is, how it can make its mark in an already crowded digital field and the role that the set top box will play in this new emerging market. Finally the paper will show how major set top box suppliers such as Pace can play a supportive role in IPTV in the future for operators and end consumers alike. 

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