The competitive landscape has changed signficantly in the last few years. Wireline Communication Service Providers are launching IP services to compete and retain residential customers through triple, quadruple, and even infinite play services.

Market research firm Gartner said IPTV subscriptions will grow by about 64 percent this year, amounting to 19.6 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2008. Also, the agency forecasted worldwide IPTV revenues to reach $4.5 billion by the end of this year, which would represent growth of more than 93 percent since last year. Gartner also said global IPTV penetration could hit 2.8 percent by the end of 2012. Sounds like there is still a long way to go.

The deployment of IPTV-based networks is increasing as traditional Communications Service providers seek opportunities to increase revenue and capture leadership positions in growing markets. Broadcast, Video on Demand and other IPTV-based services are poised to provide lucrative returns if the challenge of managing the complex networks they depend on are met.

Video content enters the system via satellite and is parceled and delivered by multiple applications across multiple servers, using several protocols. To meet subscriber expectations providers must closely manage content flows to minimize delay, jitter and packet loss to maintain quality, making resource availability and performance management key to successful deployments.

Challenges include simplifying the management of IPTV networks and improving the experience for customers using IPTV-based services, wireless broadband services, and cable services. CSPs want to maximize staff productivity through automation to meet SLA terms for the availability of end-to-end services.

The demand for these consumer resources and the deployment of these services exceeds the traditional DSL networks. As an example, IPTV service providers have increased challenges in managing the video service quality, tiling, audio/video synchronization, video on demand, pay per view, black screens, blue screens, high-definition channels, on-demand HD, Set-top-box management, residential gateway management, FTTx, home wiring, and other customer experience issues.

Example: End-to-End IPTV network

Getting it right the first time

Higher bandwidth demand is driving new network elements and other supporting resources from the head end to the neighborhood and to the home. Some equipment vendors are struggling with just the initial design and development of their hardware for mass production. Management of these resources is sometimes an afterthought since "just getting the service to work" is a priority.

Where is the problem?

We've talked to service providers who state that almost 80% of the IPTV problems are found within home wiring but there are also, content, media resources, and IP backbone traffic problems that must be managed from the home to the head end.

We have typically focused on ROI in reducing Operational Expenditures such as reducing truck rolls. Today this is even more a substantial cost due to fuel. The goal is to automate as much of the problem resolution from the Service Operation Center to avoid truck rolls.

OSI's goal is to help Communication Service Providers proactively provide as much information as possible on service-impacting resources as well as help automate the test and resolution of problems along the end-to-end network resources:

• Head End equipment
• IP multimedia subsystems (IMS),
• IP video encoders/decoders
• IP Core Network
• Fiber-To-The-x (FTTx where x could be the prem, home, or neighborhood)
• Residential Gateways
• Home Network
• Set-top boxes, and
• IPTV Middleware,

Customer Satisfaction

Retaining customers in today’s competitive environment requires the development and management of Customer Experience Management. Customers have higher expectations now that they are also pushing one or more high definition television channels as well as on demand content across these networks. Customer care groups field a multitude of issues including black screen, tiling, and other quality issues. Customer and service portals, on demand testing, and service impacting escalations help to much more rapidly diagnose problems increasing customer satisfaction.

OSI is actively working with the leading IPTV Communication Service Providers and has solutions that can help CSPs manage their service quality and improve customer experience.

OSI has focused solutions service models and automated behavior policies for correlation and propagation for service impact. Adapters are also available to help gather events, exceptions, and KPI's from service resources including signaling, active tests, fault, performance, and other systems.

To learn more about these solutions you can download an IPTV Solution Brief below and feel free to contact us.

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