TelcoTV: IPTV Continues to Suffer from Lack of Standards, Interop Barriers

You know a show is going to be exciting when the opening session is about standards. Such was the case this week with TelcoTV in Atlanta.

But the bottom line is that despite all the excitement that IPTV would seem to imply, the lack of standards and the resulting interoperability barriers in this highly fragmented industry are significant concerns for telcos and their suppliers.

And while various vendor groups have created their own ecosystems, and multiple industry consortia have tried to address IPTV standardization, a diagram distributed at Tuesday night’s general session made clear the extent to which there is duplication on this front. In the diagram, the ATIS IIF, DSL Forum and ITU IPTV Focus Group are all represented as working (not necessarily in collaboration) on the local access and regional/access network portions of IPTV’s network architecture and functions. And the CEA, DLNA and DSL Forum are all working on the customer premises piece of equipment specifications and interoperability.

It is this lack of agreement on IPTV standards that has led Martin Group to open its High Tech Engineering Lab in Mitchell, S.D., said Jerry Weber, manager of field services for the engineering and consulting firm. The lab opened this year to test various combinations of IP voice, data and video gear and services. Among the vendors with gear in this lab are Alloptic, Occam, Pannaway and Zhone. Martin Group also is installing HDTVs, PVRs, HD gaming systems, AppleTV, SlingBox and other new customer premises gear in the lab so it can test various applications over different end-to-end systems.

Martin Group doesn’t directly charge vendors or service providers for its interoperability tests, said Weber. Rather, the idea behind the lab is to enable Martin Group engineers to familiarize themselves with various IP equipment so it is better able to create interoperable end-to-end networks as service providers require them. Weber added that the lab could also be Martin Group’s entrée into offering outsourced services such as remote assistance, off-site storage and the like.

The challenge of interoperability in building IPTV networks was also a driver for Hitachi Telecom (USA) Inc. in creating its hosted video solution, which the company has not yet formally introduced but was discussing at TelcoTV this week. Through its hosted video solution Hitachi will partner with other companies to deliver an end-to-end IPTV network and can operate the service provider’s headend and/or access network on an ongoing basis as part of the deal if the carrier so chooses, said David Foote, CTO of Hitachi Telecom.

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