(7 April 2008 2:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: While opinions remained divided as to whether the Indian customer is ready for IPTV or not, a large number of speakers at the 3rd International Forum of IPTV India 2008 suggested that they are not.

PricewaterhouseCoopers telecom practice leader Usha Rajeev said that though there were some demands for choice and interactivity, customers would only come to IPTV when they received value for money.

Rajeev added that customers had to be given clarification of the incremental benefits that would accrue at an affordable value proposition.

"There is a mind boggling variety of content, but pricing is the core issue, and that has to be kept the lowest," Rajeev said.

According to Rajeev, cable TV will remain mass in the near future while IPTV will be for niche segments.

TR Dua who is the senior director of Cellular Operators Association of India, was even less enthusiastic. He said, "While broadband households stand at a mere 3.5 million, cable homes are 71 million. This indicates how poorly Indian subscribers are ready for IPTV."

MTNL director IT (techical) Kuldip Singh said that he had personal doubts about whether Indian customers were ready since the customers had no knowledge yet about IPTV.

"That is the first barrier, as people do not even know how you can get IPTV over telephone lines," Singh said.

To make the customers understand the basics, he felt it was important to recast IPTV as TV-plus.

IPTV India Forum president and former Trai advisor Dr DPS Seth said that there was no adequate medium to carry broadband, as the wiring was still copper.

"There are 40 million fixed line telephone homes and the condition is such that only seven million can be connected to broadband. As long as telcos do not invest heavily, it will be difficult for IPTV to penetrate." stated Seth.

"Our co-axial network is not two-way enabled and cable operators do not want to invest as they are not certain of the business value they can achieve with IPTV," Seth added.

Seth also said that broadcasters are not keen on IPTV as they have not been made aware what is the security of the content they dish out.

Stressing on the need of the industry to look at rural India also, Seth argued that IPTV could succeed only if it could provide a sub-Rs 8,000 system which included a low cost TV set, set-top box, camera (for voice-on-video) and a keyboard.

However, UTStarcom believes Indian consumers are ready for IPTV. Said UTStarcom India & South Asia managing director Vijay Yadav: "The first killer application that shook India was voice. Now it will be video."

For pushing IPTV, Yadav suggested that operators must keep video free, pull in the customers and then give them the things they demand such as interactivity and add-on services.