There are many misconceptions about IPTV, but Geof Heydon, Director of Innovation and Market Development at Alcatel, is an expert in the IPTV future. In this interview he separates fact from fallacy in the IPTV and “multi-service network” world. For one thing, IPTV is delivered over a separate IP network that is not the Internet. It is not something you can do on the Web today (or even in the future). It is about offering video in all its forms, TV on demand, free-to-air TV and even pay-TV together – and richly imbued with simultaneously available multiple broadband connections, Voice Over IP phone circuits, video conferences and so on. But it will take place on a very different kind of network from those in use in Australia today. Heydon explains the work to evolve the existing broadband networks towards IPTV, but also the entirely new networks that may be built to succeed the existing HFC cable when the latter wears out. Only new networks will be able to overcome the high “background contention ratios” that prevent today’s networks from delivering the end-to-end performance needed for IPTV. It is that high speed that allows IPTV features such as quick channel changes. ADSL2+ is a major upgrade to the access component of the network and that is one significant requirement of IPTV. But that’s just a start, says Heydon. You also need the network backbone to be upgraded, and for a small country such as Australia, it is not clear that the market can be allowed to look after …

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