ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1, which introduced the different applications associated with IPTV technology, we briefly examined the rationale for telephone companies beginning to offer television-type services to their customers. In this chapter we will probe that reasoning a bit further as well as expand on our examination of market drivers for different types of IPTV applications. Commencing our effort by revisiting problems that are eroding telephone company core wireline voice communications services, we will also examine several additional drivers. Those drivers include the pay-TV market, the convergence of voice, data, and video services, the evolution of broadband and video compression technologies, and competition. Concerning the latter, we will describe and discuss several new technologies and marketing techniques of competitive companies that serve as market drivers for different types of IPTV services. As we describe and discuss different market drivers, we will also examine the IPTV infrastructure being developed or used to provide different types of IPTV services. In doing so we will examine the requirements of what this author considers to represent the home of the future, which will have two standarddefinition televisions (SDTVs) and two high-definition televisions (HDTVs) as well as a high-data-rate Internet connection. In addition, the home of the future will make use of a Voice-over-IP (VoIP) service, where voice
conversations are digitized at a data rate significantly below the 64-kbps data rate used by conventional telephone services.
