Readers of this blog from years past will recall that I have a real downer on IPTV (that is, walled garden services, not TV over IP).
And there seem to be plenty of vendors struggling out there. In the UK, Home Choice never got very far, with just over 30,000 subscribers, in the US, AT&T are struggling with the rollout of the Microsoft based technology and currently are reported as having only 7,000 subscribers and I've heard rumours that IPTV services for Deutsche Telekom and KPN have fared even worse.
Getting viewers to switch service on the back of some second rate movies on demand seems crazy to me when the richness of content available over the open internet improves every day. It takes incredibly deep pockets to launch an IPTV service, but rarely results in anything more than 'me too' content with some bells and whistles. According to one of the most successful services, Fastweb, it's the ability to time-shift kiddies' programmes that is the real killer app.
And there seem to be plenty of vendors struggling out there. In the UK, Home Choice never got very far, with just over 30,000 subscribers, in the US, AT&T are struggling with the rollout of the Microsoft based technology and currently are reported as having only 7,000 subscribers and I've heard rumours that IPTV services for Deutsche Telekom and KPN have fared even worse.
Getting viewers to switch service on the back of some second rate movies on demand seems crazy to me when the richness of content available over the open internet improves every day. It takes incredibly deep pockets to launch an IPTV service, but rarely results in anything more than 'me too' content with some bells and whistles. According to one of the most successful services, Fastweb, it's the ability to time-shift kiddies' programmes that is the real killer app.
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