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Interactive television looks set to touch the masses
The days of creating your own television channel are not far off, thanks to the emergence of new Internet protocol technology, executives of French telecom infrastructure group Alcatel say.
Alcatel, which is working on 30-40 IPTV (Internet protocol TV) projects worldwide, believes the interactive television technology will make its presence felt among ordinary customers in many countries this year."I think 2006 will be the year in which IPTV becomes visible by mass-market consumers," said Geof Heydon, director for innovation and marketing development for Alcatel Asia Pacific. In Thailand, where reality shows like "Big Brother" are popular, the chances of the successful launch of an IPTV network are quite promising, he said, although the country may need to wait for broadband penetration to increase to at least 25 per cent, up from 15 per cent now. An IPTV in the home will work more like a PC than the old television receiver. Similar to websites, viewers can create their own content and share it with their friends, family or anybody who might like to watch it. In other words, you can make your own television channel. Based on its "triple play'' capabilities, IPTV can be used to accept or record a phone call, pre-record a television programme and watch it at leisure, pause a live football game, and vote on a show, among other things. Heydon said that compared to SMS voting, pushing a button on the IPTV's remote would be cheaper, thus encouraging more viewers to vote during a programme. Viewers can see what programmes attract most audiences on a real-time basis and click for the shows. Because of its triple-play capabilities, people with cell phones can also use them from outside their home to send a message to their IPTVs to record shows. "You can order a programme with a pizza," added Laurent Perche, mobile product leader of Alcatel (Thailand). Alcatel forecasts there will be 72 million IPTV users worldwide by 2010, about 5 per cent of the 1.4 billion television households in the world. One of its largest IPTV projects under way is with US network operator SBC Communications, which is investing US$1.6 billion (Bt62.7 billion) to capture five million households within the next three or four years. In Asia, Singapore Telecommunications has recently agreed to Alcatel starting a trial run on an IPTV network. Philippe Chettou, managing director of Alcatel (Thailand), said that due to language differences, the availability of local programmes to be offered on IPTV was also a key factor for the successful launch of an IPTV service in Thailand.
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