IPTV Will Struggle In India Says Gartner
Gartner reiterates something that I’ve said time and again – that IPTV will struggle in India. The reasons that Gartner gives for this are:
– Cable TV users pay almost half of what digital subscribers pay, so they’ll have a lower propensity to shift.
– Low broadband penetration will inhibit IPTV uptake; mass broadband usage is required.
– 2007 is a critical year for pay TV, with CAS being mandated in a phased manner, and more players are moving into DTH, which is growing. They have a head-start, and will block existing players.
– IPTV will be priced at the same prie as digital cable or DTH, so no price differentiation
I disagree with the second point: existing broadband connections are not critical for IPTV; that’s like saying that DTH will struggle because people don’t have the dish already in their homes. There is wireline telephone infrastructure already in place, and the carrier provides the wire for IPTV along with it. The real issue, as I’ve said before, is about marketing and policy. CAS deadlines are slipping away, and one doesn’t know yet how IPTV will be governed; so there’s barely any deployment, and almost no marketing. For consumers, there are only two choices – DTH or CAS. No one knows about IPTV.
According to Gartner, the franchise based model being adopted (involving private players like IOL Broadband and Time Broadband) will help speed up deployment. Gartner recommends that carriers offer DTH to secure customers, and later convert them to IPTV or offer a hybrid DTH-IP broadband Set Top Box for both services.
Nikhil,
I can understand the point you make about the current lack of broadband and the it being not an impediment to IPTV.
Guess Gartner's comment is based on the fact that the last mile infrastructure is not robust enough (or in some cases not even present) to pipe TV through. The difference in DTH and IPTV will be usually last mile. In the former, I buy a VSAT and make it point to the pie in the sky and I am rolling. The latter will involve BSNL/MTNL (sigh), changes in exchange infrastructure etc. While the backbone is present in India, the last mile access is still lacking (in 60% of the country). While DTH does not face that problem.
Gartner seems to have taken a leaf out of Sky's operations in the UK while making their recomendations though. :D, while DTH will handle the push, IPTV (or any damn way to talk back to the cloud) will increase interactivity and will help the provider keep tabs on the trash we watch!
Good points. I have two to make, rather questions to ask:
1) Rajesh: When you say “trash we watch” are you somewhere reiterating “content is still king”? as in, in the age of increasing distribution platforms and bundling (at least in the UK), would you say that content providers have an increased role to play in that they need to differentiate between each other in terms of content? Simply put, are people more concerned with the quality and kind of programmes they watch rather than the platform they watch it on?
2) Nikhil: The infrastructure issue on one side, do you think that IPTV is a concept whose time in India has not yet come? How optimistic are you that there exist sufficient “early adopters” in the “great Indian middle class” to expect encouraging results for the whole market? (or have I got the market wrong?) do you think the market is technologically savvy enough to accept and adopt IPTV?
Regards
Biresh
Hi Nikhil,
This seems contradictory to:
(1) the prospects for exciting new content for the emerging IPTV, web and mobile TV platforms showcased by India in Oct at MIPCOM.
(2) the recent US$500mill tie-up between Microsoft and Reliance for IPTV platform and deployment plans of Reliance.
Would Reliance and Microsoft have misjudged the obvious noted by Gartner?
Would Reliance and Microsoft have misjudged the obvious noted by Gartner?
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It has to be noted that, the IPTV intake has certainly be mis interpreted. IPTV will see a lot of intake. However it is too early to comment on the success as it is still in its embryonic stage