SBC tags set-top box companies for IPTV

I think this is our first mention of Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), but I know for sure it won't be our last. IPTV, a method of broadcasting television content over broadband, will start out slowly this year and build momentum over the next several years. This opens the television provider market wide open and has traditional cable and satellite companies tying knots in their coax and fiber cables.

SBC picked Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta to manufacture set-top boxes for their "Project Lightspeed" pilot of IPTV in 2006. SBC is expected to use the more efficient MPEG-4 video compression method, which will take up half of what MPEG-2 uses. This means half the bandwidth is required and double the storage capacity in a DVR set-top box.

Other internet and broadband providers are planning IPTV as well, so stay tuned for what is likely the "next big thing" for digital television!

 

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 18th 2005 9:00PM]

More competition in the TV-distribution arena is a great thing. So is moving toward a video-on-demand world. But I find it less than ideal to have the same entities controlling both the pipes and the content options, especially given recent FCC rulings that lessen broadband competition. (The SBCs of the world are less vertically integrated than the Time Warners, at least.)

I look forward to a day when TV (a TV-internet hybrid, actually) offers a range of voices comparable to what you find on the web, and that expanded universe becomes as easily available as CBS or NBC.