Report Buyer, the online destination for business intelligence for major industry sectors, has added a new report which finds that IC (IPTV) is an appealing, but tentative proposition even as fixed-line incumbent Telefónica Chile has become the first company in Latin America to offer IPTV services.
“2007 Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Latin America - Geographic” reports that in June 2007, the company launched IPTV in Santiago, with an investment of around US$20 million in network upgrades and equipment purchases.
The report finds that interactive features such as Video on demand (VOD) have allowed customers to enjoy an extensive range of movies, TV series, and audiovisual material through a virtual library.
However, analysts in the industry say the cost of rolling out services, and the number of years before recouping initial investment, are concerns for most telcos. Moreover, for IPTV deployment, Fiber to the Home (FttH) is considered a preferable broadband vehicle than Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), since it has greater speed and bandwidth, but Latin America has yet to develop an FttH market.
The publication finds that IPTV service delivers a 100% digital image with next-generation video compression standards (MPEG4). They note that the operator hopes to have around 3,000-5,000 IPTV subscribers by end-2007, but highlight the fact that the service, is still limited to the wealthier neighbourhoods in the northeastern corner of Santiago.
Authors of the report say that Telsur, the incumbent carrier in Chile’s southern region, has also shown a marked interest in IPTV, although it wants to first observe how the technology develops elsewhere before starting any concrete implementation work. They find that this company has been testing and upgrading cabling infrastructure to bring the fibre closer to the client since traditional wiring is unsuitable for TV broadcasting.
The study says IPTV, or TV over broadband, is an emerging service model in the pay-TV market and the advantage of IPTV is that it incorporates customer choice, interactivity, and other value-added applications on top of an existing broadband platform.
“2007 Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Latin America - Geographic” is available from Report Buyer. For more information go to:
http://www.reportbuyer.com/
Report Buyer product ID: BUD00110
