DSL Forum excited by worldwide IPTV growth

Most of the growth comes from Europe, where the number of IPTV customers rose to 4,984,000 from 1,505,000 in 2006.

In the Americas, 660,000 broadband customers signed up to IPTV services, giving the region a total of 1,069,000 users, while the Asia Pacific added 1,189,000 customers to give it 2,176,000 subscribers.

DSL considers that these figures are very promising. Even a year ago people questioned whether IPTV would be a compelling application. The growth to more than eight million customers using IPTV in every region of the world proves its success.

Although impressive, growth has come from a low base and still leaves IPTV trailing other pay-TV platforms. Satellite operator BSkyB has around eight million pay-TV customers in the UK alone.

It is not clear how many IPTV customers are using DSL technology, which has been criticised by some operators as too slow. France Telecom and Hong Kong’s PCCW, both IPTV pioneers, have built expensive fibre-to-the-home networks to support their IPTV offers. Together, the two operators account for approximately 1.5 million users.

DSL Forum considers that the industry is getting better at using what already exists to provide services, and that 24Mbps is more than enough.

ADSL2+ technology, an advanced version of DSL, is theoretically capable of providing 24Mbps, although actual speeds can depend on the distance between a customer’s home and the local telephone exchange.

DSL Forum is a consortium of approximately 200 leading industry players covering telecommunications, equipment, computing, networking and service provider companies.

The work of the forum ensures that service providers are able to put into operation, as well as introduce new services quickly and effectively, using common platforms and practices that makes all they do easily scalable, and economical.

Established in 1994, the forum continues its drive to develop the full potential of DSL to meet the broadband needs of the mass market.

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