Telco IPTV View: Networking the Vizio VBR231 Blu-ray Player

Telco IPTV View: Networking the Vizio VBR231 Blu-ray Player

I couldn't find the manual either. I found the manual for the VBR220 to be close enough. You can find it at:

http://www.vizio.com/vbr220.html#support

Bob

New Over the Top Emphasis

I stopped following the Telco IPTV market last year when I retired and closed down TelecomView. I have maintained an interest in over the top IPTV services and have started using it myself. I will now use this blog to document my experiences.

I cut the cable and converted to over the air broadcast services several years ago. I have been pleased by the variety of digital channels that are available here in San Francisco and see no need to pay $100 per month or more for a cable or satellite service, especially when I can get HD broadcasts from the major networks for free.

I did want to subscribe to AT&T's U-verse IPTV service. Microsoft even offered to pay for my subscription since I was an analyst covering this space. However, the City of San Francisco and AT&T reached an impasse that caused AT&T to decide not to offer U-verse in San Francisco. Given the size of the remotes required, I cannot blame the city for objecting. At this point I would not put the money out for the service, even if I could get it.

I will follow this post with others that discuss my experience with bringing video services to my TV over the Internet.

Verizon Adds Internet Capabilities to FiOS TV

Verizon has added the ability to access certain Internet applications and websites on its FiOS TV IPTV service. It added what it calls its Widget Bazaar applications marketplace, located within FiOS TV's Interactive Media Guide, with free Facebook, Twitter and ESPN Fantasy Football Widgets.

With the Twitter Widget, FiOS TV subscribers can follow Tweets related specifically to the program, movie or sporting event they are watching. They also can select from a list of top topics to view Tweets associated with today's hottest topics and trends, search for specific Tweets, and create and save a favorite-topics list.

FiOS TV subscribers with Facebook accounts can log in to Facebook through the FiOS TV Widget to update their Facebook status with messages about what they're watching, view their own photos, and view their friends' photos and status updates.

The ESPN Fantasy Football Widget provides on-screen access to personalized ESPN Fantasy Football points and football statistics, including rosters, box scores, scoring leaders and player information. All the information is available, at no additional charge, for FiOS TV customers who are registered ESPN Fantasy Football players.

Verizon will add to the FiOS TV Widget Bazaar additional free and transactional applications developed by the company and others. It will publish its Software Development Kit (SDK) to enable open development. The open development platform will enable developers to publish applications to the more than 7 million interactive set-top devices in FiOS TV homes.

Later this month, customers who subscribe to the Home Media DVR service will be able to search and view on FiOS TV user generated online videos from video-sharing sites blip.tv, Dailymotion, and Veoh. In addition, a new My Videos feature will let these subscribers view via FiOS TV personal videos stored on their PCs.

Verizon has put a page on its website that contains more information about these features.

This is a good start at providing access to Internet applications by Verizon. It is starting to make good use of the IP capabilities of its FiOS TV service. Verizon was able to move in this new direction because it now has taken over the development and maintenance of its middleware software. Other IPTV providers will follow Verizon's example.

ATT Enhances U-verse IPTV Service

ATT has introduced new features to its U-verse IPTV service to make it more competitive with cable and satellite companies:

• The ability to set or delete recording as well as watch recorded programs from any of up to eight TVs in the home.
• An increase of speed from 10 to 12 Mbps for those subscribed to this level of service.
• A video on demand recommendation service based on the viewers ratings of past selections.
• An improved interface for web connected PCs for controlling the recording function on the set-top box.
• Improved navigation in using U-verse from the TV.

ATT is strongly promoting its remote DVR capability in its TV ads. It has found a unique feature that seems to be gaining traction.

Cisco IPTV Video Delivery Test

Light Reading published an 18 screen article describing a test performed by EANTC of the ability of a Cisco infrastructure to deliver high quality IPTV service. The conclusion was that the Cisco network performed very well.

This is a very interesting effort. It does a good job of characterizing the performance of this network delivering broadcast/multicast service with a modest amount of video on demand. This are realistic assumptions for most of today's IPTV networks.

However, I am aware of IPTV networks that support network DVR services that are experiencing 80 percent penetration of video on demand services during peak periods. This puts the network into an entirely new dimension. It would have been much more interesting if such a heavy video on demand load was tested as well. This is where IPTV networks are going.

IPTV in Korea

Light Reading published an article discussing the status of Korea has made the transition from an on demand only service to a service that includes broadcast content. It on demand service now has 1.3 million subscribers and its broadcast service has grown to 222,600 subscribers in four months.

The country has made great progress even though there is confusion over whether its on demand service is a walled garden or an over the top, Internet service. Maybe Korea is far enough along that distinction is no longer important.

SingTel Adds 19K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

SingTel in Singapore added 19,000 IPTV subscribers in 1Q09 leaving it with a total of 78,000. It stated that this was the largest number of adds to its mioTV IPTV service.

SingTel continues to make progress but not has lit the market on fire the way PCCW did in Hong Kong.

Belgacom Adds 49K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

Belgacom added 49,000 IPTV subscribers in 1Q09 giving it a total of 555,000 at the end of the quarter. Of these it added 5,000 homes with more than one IPTV set-top box leaving a total of 70,000. The ARPU for its TV service increased from 19.4 to 20.4 euros during the quarter. Its IPTV revenues remained flat during the quarter at 13 million euros. Belgacom said that its IPTV service is now EBITDA positive. It spent 27 million euros of capital on its IPTV service for set-top boxes, content, and infrastructure.

Belgacom continues to be successful in a very competitive Pay TV market. The Belgian cable companies fell behind Belgacom in services and technology and are now paying the price.

BT Adds 45K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

BT added 45,000 IPTV subscribers to its BT Vision service leaving it with a total of 423,000 at the end of the quarter. It now has over 430,000 IPTV subscribers. It said that 90 percent of its new subscribers are taking a subscription and that its ARPU for the service has doubled.

BT is continuing to make progress in a competitive market. It appears that its strategy of riding on Freeview's coat tails is working well for it.

Telefonica Lost 7.7K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

Telefonica lost 7,700 IPTV subscribers in Spain in 1Q09 leaving it with a total of 604,800. It did ad 13,300 IPTV subscribers in its O2 operation in the Czech Republic, ending the quarter with 127,800.

Spain seems to be a difficult IPTV market. Telefonica has clearly lost its momentum in its home market.

Telecom Italia Added 36K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

Telecom Italia added 36,000 IPTV subscribers in 1Q09 giving it a total of 365,000 at the end of the quarter.

The pace of its IPTV subscriber additions slowed significantly from the rate that it achieved in 4Q08.

Telus has 100K IPTV Subscribers

Telus in Canada now has 100,000 IPTV subscribers. It offers 33 HD channels, personal video recorder capabilities with 60 hours of HD recording time, and HD video on demand. The company plans to launch a satellite TV service later in 2009.

Telus seems to be doing well with this service. The satellite TV service will enable it to offer TV service to the large rural areas that it covers.

Swisscom adds 21K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

Swisscom added 21,000 Bluewin TV IPTV subscribers in 1Q09 giving 139,000 total subscribers.

Swisscom continues to make steady progress with its IPTV service.

Verizon Adds 299K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

Verizon added 299,000 IPTV FiOS TV subscribers in 1Q09, leaving it with a total of 2.217 million. It also added 298,000 FiOS FTTH subscribers, giving it a total of 2.779 million at the end of the quarter.

Verizon continues to make strong progress. Its FiOS TV service is clearly an important part of its FiOS offering.

France Telecom Adds 354K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

France Telecom added 354,000 IPTV subscribers across all of its operations leaving it with a total of 2.463 million at the end of the quarter. In France it added 257,000 IPTV subscribers, leaving it with a total of 2.166 million. Its Pay TV subscriptions in France grew by 240,000 in France ending the quarter with 1.138 million.

France Telecom added 12,000 subscribers in Spain, giving it a total of 99,000. It added 85,000 in Poland ending the quarter with 198,000 subscribers.

France Telecom is continuing to do well. Its operation in Spain has even started to increase again.

Chunghwa Telecom Added 10K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

Chunghwa Telecom added 10,000 IPTV subscribers in 1Q09, giving it 686,000 at the end of the quarter. It plans to strengthen its offering by repackaging and introducing premium content, with new marketing programs, and by introducing interactive capabilities.

This was a significant drop in new subscribers. I expect that the current economic crisis had a lot to do with it.

Telia Adds 22K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

Telia Sonera added 22,000 IPTV subscribers across all of its operations in 1Q09, leaving with with a total of 509,000 at the end of the quarter. The country by country results were:

• Sweden added 9,000 new subscribers, giving it a total of 333,000 at the end of the quarter.
• Norway added no new IPTV subscribers and ended the quarter with 10,000.
• Denmark added 1,000 new IPTV subscribers, ending the quarter with 2,000.
• Lithuania added 14,000, giving it 81,000 and the end of 1Q09.
• Estonia added 9,000 new IPTV subscribers, ending the quarter with 83,000.

Telia Sonera continued to have modest growth in its IPTV service.

ATT Adds 284K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

ATT added 284,000 IPTV subscribers in 1Q09, leaving it with a total of 1.329 million at the end of the quarter. Over the same period it added 359,000 broadband subscribers, giving it a total of 15.436 million.

ATT continues to make good progress in spite of the difficult financial environment. It will easily exceed 2 million IPTV subscribers by the end of 2009 if it maintains this rate. It now sees its IPTV service as a significant driver for its broadband business.

Cantv in Venezuela to invest $400M in IPTV

TV Latam has posted an article saying that state owned Cantv in Venezuela will spend $400M on its IPTV system to reach 1.26 million subscribers using a system provided by ZTE. During the first trial stage of the project, Cantv will offer its service to 67.090 users who will have access to 140 channels.

Venezuela is taking a democratic approach and plans to offer a mass market service. This is a huge win for ZTE.

PCCW Adds 26K IPTV Subscribers in 2H08

PCCW added 26,000 IPTV subscribers in 2H08 leaving it with a total of 953,000 IPTV subscribers at the end of 2008. This is consistent with its increase of 27,000 broadband subscribers over the same period, giving 1.302 M at the end of 2008. It also added 18,000 IPTV paying subscribers in 2H08, leaving it with 686,000 at the end of the year.

PCCW continues more than five years of growth with its IPTV service.