The best definition of IPTV is “the QoS-assured delivery of standard- or high-definition network or studio programming in either broadcast or on-demand form using the IP protocol.” … Tom Nolle, President, CIMI Corp.

Apart from the tautology of IP protocol I agree with Tom’s assessment.

Over the last 18 years I have been involved in a number of iTV and IPTV laboratory and field trials, studies, business cases; you name it. Many executive and product management staff in the telecommunications industry have rarely shown a full understanding of Television and to make matters worse of recent times the term IPTV has be shanghaied by many to the point of weakening its meaning, which Tom seems to be trying to reinstate.

In fairness to those telco executives the TV executives have even less of an understanding of the telecommunications industry; to the point of distrust in many cases.

The TV industry, be that free to air, or Cable TV, or Satellite TV, have spent millions of dollars and many, many years in building brand value through the reliable delivery of linear TV content. This is what Tom means by … QoS-assured delivery … in his definition of IPTV.

This point is often missed by the many offerings today that purport to be IPTV solutions.

The other party that is often misunderstood is the asset owners who value the quality of experience, which directly translates into the quality of delivery in the linear TV world as well as the IPTV world. Their desire to protect their assets, and thus their revenues, is understandable. However over the years I have seen content negotiations fail due to a lack of respect for this position from telco executives. This is one of those challenges I love about IPTV as a successful IPTV deployment is more than the sum of technology parts.

Later today I will post what I think an IPTV experience should be; linear and yet not.