Vendors Strive to Address Telcos’ IPTV Quality Quandary

While service providers are striving to deploy video-driven IP service bundles to all comers, they’ve been reporting that they lack testing products that go beyond covering physical network infrastructure to the performance and quality of the TV services that they’re banking big on.

The testing and monitoring market has taken notice with many focusing on what they call “video quality assurance” systems. Telcos hope these vendors can tell them when the network’s fine but when the services that ride atop them aren’t.

Research from Frost & Sullivan Inc. said the worldwide IP video test and measurement market brought in $52.2 million in revenue in 2005 and is expected to reach $289 million in 2010.

The latest offerings in this ongoing quest come from billing and OSS vendor Syndesis, which announced a new package Wednesday, not long after Symmetricom Inc. debuted a plug-in server card supporting QoS and more for IP services.

"Service providers looking to launch IPTV offerings face a host of operational challenges, including ensuring that the infrastructure can provide the needed connectivity to support the desired service experience," said Larry Goldman, co-founder and senior analyst for OSS Observer.

The firm has forecast that the number of IPTV subscribers worldwide will grow from 2.2 million in 2005 to 28 million in 2010 as telcos are driven by competition and the need to find new sources of revenue. North America will remain the most competitive market for IPTV service which will act as a catalyst for increasing OSS investments in the residential broadband segment.

Syndesis’ IPTV Express

The Toronto-based vendor has announced Syndesis IPTV Express, which it describes as an “IPTV service fulfillment solution that manages both IPTV service content and connectivity across telecommunications networks with a single, unified platform.”

IPTV Express, Syndesis said, simplifies and accelerates IPTV service design, creation and activated. It can be deployed on its own for end-to-end fulfillment management or in conjunction with existing systems and can be extended to support fulfillment of multiple IP services.

The vendor said the package enables remote DVR settings, supports auto-configuration of set-top boxes to fully automate and simplify IPTV service fulfillment, and automatically configures network connectivity to meet QoS and policy requirements of HDTV, independent of underlying network technologies.

Timing is Everything?

Symmetricom, which makes precise time and frequency products and services, has created a plug-in server card that it said supports QoS for applications such as IPTV, billing record management, QoS measurement systems and IP SLA monitoring. The new carrier class NTP server card is fully integrated into the vendor’s TimeHub building integrated timing supply (BITS) system.

“The BITS platform can now deliver carrier class NTP to meet demanding NGN packet timing requirements, providing performance, scalability, availability and security for delivery of advanced services,” said Barry Dropping, senior director of product line management for Symmetricom.

NGN applications such as IPTV are highly dependant on carrier class NTP. Time coordination of massive amounts of digital content in the head end serving locations is reliant on accurate and secure NTP timestamps, according to the company.

Frost & Sullivan Inc. www.frost.com  

OSS Observer LLC www.ossobserver.com  

Syndesis Ltd. www.syndesis.com  

Symmetricom Inc. www.symmetricom.com

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