BT to use pester power

More announcements on BT’s content for its IPTV service. Are they hoping for an element of pester power once the kids get used to having Bob & Pingu on tap? Perhaps more interesting is the fact that the service will be rolled out nationwide rather than restricted to metropolitan areas. Given that there are still some exchanges (35 here in Wales) which are still not even enabled for broadband I’d like to see how they’ll do that.

There won’t be any subscriptions involved either and it will be available to all BT broadband customers, no mention of how much the set-top-box and PVR will cost (if anything). It sounds as though this service will do a lot to entice customers from resellers and LLU operators.

Ofcom to sort out IPTV rights

Ofcom looks to settle disputes between programme makers and broadcasters. Good news for Channel 4 who are looking for a 30-day window of exclusivity. Bad news for BT and other non-traditional broadcasters who might have to wait a month or two before being able to show the programmes. Until BT are in a position to buy original content then they’ll have to be content with films and old programmes. It would put Sky in a strong position with their Sky By Broadband service and the possibility of offering IPTV through their recently purchased Easynet.

IPTV on any broadband connection?

An impressive sounding IPTV and VoD set top box has been announced by MatrixStream at CES2006. It claims to deliver HD and DVD quality TV over any ‘best effort’ broadband connection. Wonder what ‘best effort’ broadband actually means. There was a time not long ago that 128kbps was argued to be broadband. The title refers to powerline broadband but makes no mention of it in the article. It claims it can deliver over any connection by using MPEG-4 (H.264) codec.

As fancy as this gadget sounds though it ain’t diddly without decent content behind it.

VoIP Silos

Om Malik at the CES 2006 has valid points on the lack of interoperability of VoIP handsets between different VoIP services. Standardisation enables a unit to be mass produced more easily as it can be used in more situations. Mass production means lower production costs which means cheaper units. Having these VoIP silos will inevitably mean that handsets will be more expensive for a service who’s chief selling point (at the moment) is the cheap cost of calls. How long would it take for the cheaper calls to pay for the handset?

This story mirrors the current WiMAX certification process where vendors have standardised the fixed and mobile WiMAX standards in effort to reduce CPE costs.