Warning. Shameless self-promotion ahead!

How long does it take IPTV Operators to install their services? That’s the principal question behind a research report I’ve written, called “IPTV Home Networking Strategies” published by Multimedia Research Group.

Aside from home installation times, I also looked at strategies for home networking for IPTV Operators and some new technologies (HANA and DLNA) that promise to make it easier to connect all our IP-related devices in the future. For example, do you k now the differences between HANA and DLNA? Do you know what they are? They’re not used very often right now, but they have great promise in a hyper-connected home.

In performing our research, we surveyed the Top 60 IPTV Operators around the world and asked them about the home installation times from the 1st set-top box to the 3rd STB. We broke down results by geography (Asia, North American and Europe), by home networking technology (HomePNA, Powerline and MOCA) and by 1st, 2nd and 3rd STB installation.

The results? They’re pretty surprising.

• The average total installation time from the curb to 3 STBs is 3.79 person-hours.
• North American IPTV operators had the highest overall total average installation times with 5.16 person hours.
• Europe had the lowest total average installation times: 2.87 person-hours.
• 38% of respondents reported using HomePNA as their home networking technology. the most popular answer.
• HomePNA also had the highest overall average installation times at 4.47 person-hours.
• Of all the home networking technologies, powerline had the lowest overall average installation times: 2.21 person-hours.

Why is the U.S. Slower?

Generally, the U.S. had higher install times because IPTV Operators (AT&T and Verizon primarily) have rolled out their services later than Asian and European Operators. We’re finding that experience helps–installers can teach other installers about best practices and lower their installation times. Plus, North American Operators give customers a more personalized in-home installation experience, whereas Europe for example has more customer self-installs.

Also, Europe tends to use more powerline networking (networking via electrical outlets), which lowers their install times because Operators don’t need to run new wires or drill holes. Despite the popularity of HomePNA, we also found that Operators are still using Cat-5 cable to wire homes, especially in North America.

Another surprising fact was that Operators are using more than one home networking technology. Sometimes it’s a combination of a coax line (HomePNA or MoCA) as well as wireless (usually via Ruckus Wireless, which is targeted at video delivery). Or it could be a combination of Cat-5 and some other wired networking. Clearly, much depends on the home and how many coax lines are already installed as well as how many set-top boxes need to be installed.

Although Operators have chosen their home networking technology, they still like to keep their options when they arrive at a customer’s home–telephone wires, powerlines, coax, wireless or Cat-5. AT&T has chosen HomePNA (coax) as its primary home networking technology, whereas Verizon is using MoCA (also coax).

The report focuses on lots more (best practices, home networking strategies for IPTV Operaties, how each networking technology works) so I can’t cover everything here. (You can purchase it by following the links to the report above.)

However, I will be covering home networking and IPTV installations in future posts. Let me know, via comments, what you’re interested in so I can zoom in on specific areas.

Bonus:Telephony Online did a quick story on this, which basically highlighted some of the results of the survey and provided some quotes from Gary Schultz, managing director at MRG.

Technorati Tags: IPTV, home networking, IPTV installation, MoCA, HomePNA, Powerline, UPA, HomePlug, Ruckus Wireless, AT&T, Verizon, U-Verse, FiOS TV,

Isn’t it ironic? A company puts out a press release with the results of a survey showing that over half of respondents are not familiar with the term IPTV. Yet they themselves don’t know what the term IPTV means.

The survey said that more than half of respondents didn’t know what IPTV meant, yet 92% have watched YouTube.

For the record: YouTube is not IPTV. IPTV means broadcast TV delivered over a managed network (or walled garden) using Internet protocols (IP). Thus the term IPTV. YouTube is Internet video. That’s because it’s delivered over the public Internet. Internet video is just a “best effort” delivery since it’s not managed.

But really, it’s not the fault of the company. The term IPTV is often mis-understood by lots of people. I would have thought, however, that a company doing a survey on Internet video would understand the difference.

Another way to distinguish IPTV from Internet video: IPTV is about delivering linear broadcast TV. The survey talked about Internet user-generated content and YouTube. It’s just not the same, and one way to keep the two sides different is not to mix up the terms.

The company that did the survey, WebsEdge, is a content creator that’s in the business of putting videos on the Internet. However, since they barely understand the difference between IPTV and Internet video, how can their customers? Or a regular consumer?

I had a call with Stephen Horn, the CEO of WebsEdge where he admitted that they may have mixed up the terms. But he held fast to the results of the survey and didn’t think he got anything wrong.

I think the press release and the survey are invalid and don’t make any sense.

It just makes me wonder how companies can put out press releases like this that claim any kind of validity.

I even am beginning to wonder about how the survey was conducted. Did they use scientific methods? The press release simply says:

“The survey, conducted in late 2007 in New York City, asked 225 residents about their attitudes and knowledge of IPTV.”

At the end of the press release it states:

“The survey was conducted in midtown Manhattan, New York.”

What kind of questions did they ask? When I asked Stephen about how the survey was conducted I got a vague answer that they’d get back to me. It’s been a few days, and I still haven’t heard anything about how it was conducted. Did they simply walk up to people in the streets? Who knows.

It doesn’t really matter, really. Yet another reason not to take this “survey” seriously.

Bonus: If you feel like reading it, you can see the PDF of the full press release here.

According to the Yankee Group, IPTV subscribers will grow to 9 million in the U.S. by 2011. IPTV is essentially broadcast TV delivered over a managed network (such as through telcos) and includes services like AT&T’s U-Verse and Verizon’s FiOS TV.

Currently, IPTV is gaining more traction in Asia and Europe. France has the largest number of telco-TV customers, including Free and Orange. France Telecom’s Orange TV has over 1.2 million subscribers.

Here in the U.S. Verizon is leading the way, however they are using a hybrid IPTV delivery system, which many experts say isn’t true IPTV. Verizon uses standard cable-TV delivery for its broadcast system, and IP-based video for its VOD. Its FiOS TV service now has over 1 million subscribers in the U.S., which beats AT&T. Their service has about 250,000 subscribers as of the end of 2007.

Technorati Tags: IPTV, Telco TV, FiOS TV, AT&T, Verizon, U-Verse, France Telecom, Yankee Group, Orange

The combination of Internet advertising, Internet TV, mobile ads, game advertising and IPTV advertising will generate $41 billion in revenues by 2011, says research firm MultiMedia Intelligence.

In 2007, new media advertising will generate about $18 billion worldwide, which means ad revenues will more than double in five years.

The company says that three new categories–Internet TV, IPTV and mobile TV–will make up about 20% of media ad dollars in 2011. So far, advertising in these nascent media is pretty low.

Technorati Tags: IPTV, research, advertising, TV, DVR, new media, mobile TV

According to a white paper published by Cisco, global IP traffic will grow 37% every year through 2011.

Cisco said that consumer IP traffic will surpass business IP traffic in 2008, surpassing 17 exabytes per month by 2011. The paper says that delivering “cable and IPTV video-on-demand content” will grow the fastest, surpassing consumer internet traffic.

I’m not sure how Cisco is figuring this since IPTV today is delivered over privately managed networks, not the public Internet. Do they expect IPTV to travel over the Internet in the future? Or are they using IPTV when they mean Internet video?

Just trying to understand what everyone means by IPTV is getting harder every day. The standard definition for IPTV is essentially Telco TV, or broadcast TV delivered over privately, managed networks like DSL or Fiber to the node or Fiber to the home.  Here in the U.S. that means projects like AT&T’s U-Verse and Verizon’s FiOSTV.

Cisco’s report was based on its own estimates, as well as projections from10 market research companies.

Anyway, some other tidbits from the paper:

• Internet video and downloads will grow from 9% of all consumer Internet traffic in 2006 to 30% in 2011.
• Internet traffic is growing fastest in developing markets, followed closely by Asia-Pacific.
• Internet video-to-TV will increase by more than a factor of 10 from 2007 to 2011.
• Internet video-to-PC will increase by a factor of four. Internet video-to-TV will exceed Internet video-to-PC by 2009, the Cisco study forecasts.

Bonus: Download the Cisco White Paper here. (PDF)