Streaming ahead

Telecommunications International, Jan, 2001 by Sanjima DeZoysa

The TV audience

PixStream's Colman believes the possibilities that streaming technologies have introduced have driven traditional telco operators to become more competitive and branch out their services to include offerings such as video streaming to the TV. PixStream provide telco operators with a video head-end to set top box solution that enables them to gather broadcast TV content and distribute it to residential homes over existing copper networks using broadband access technologies such as DSL.

In the UK, however, the potential is somewhat dampened by the cost of accessing residential homes through networks predominantly owned by BT. To deliver television pictures of VCR quality, telco operators need a pipe capable of delivering at least 2Mbps. BT charges telco operators and service providers [epsilon]1,022 to provide a 2.3Mbps connection between the local exchange and a consumer's home, plus a monthly line rental charge of about [epsilon]98. In addition, the set-top box that decodes the video pictures for TVs costs about [epsilon]163. Yet regardless of these high access charges, there is still optimism that as BT faces more competition the cost of renting a 2Mbps line will fall to [epsilon]25. In addition, under pressure from UK regulators, BT has committed to opening 600 of its 1,500 most sought-after local exchanges to rival network operators by July.

There is also stiff competition from cable companies who are established and strong entities in the residential market, and Colman claims cable TV companies often negotiate with telecoms regulators to prevent entry of operators into their domestic market. A competitive advantage for operators is their focus on customer care, an area which cable companies often neglect.

Colman also gives examples of business applications using streaming via satellite to the TV: "These are mainly financial service houses with trading floors. There are a number of organisations in London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam deploying TV-based feeds into the building: CNN, Bloomberg TV, BBC World. These sorts of feeds help them with the ability to source news and stock market figures very quickly, for example."

The wireless challenge

Uzi Breier, VP marketing and business development, GEO, which develops streaming audio and video solutions over telecom and IP networks, looks at another channel for streaming -- mobile phones. He concedes that transferring data over cellular lines does pose more problems: "Unlike the wired line where data can be tracked back to the source if it is not received and then retransmitted, in real time this is not possible." There must be mechanisms in place to counter errors so that regardless of any interference, video is streamed continuously so the eye does not detect it. In order to do this various standards have been developed -- Breier points to MPEG-4 (motion picture expert group), the standard affiliated to video and audio. "MPEG-4 is the state of the art application method that handles quality of service and handles operability of the streaming applications."