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Christian Bartosch, head of services MEA, Nokia Siemens Networks.

The relationship between broadband and IPTV services is explicit. Digital Broadcast looks at the importance of high-value video services for telcos.

IPTV has had an important year in the Middle East since the last edition of the IPTV World Forum MEA.

Advances that have shifted services away from basic cable TV over IP and into the realm of true IPTV have launched in the UAE, which has gone a long way to emphasising the capabilities and advantages that IPTV can offer.

Both UAE telcos now offer TV bundles based on fibre networks that till now had offered very little other than expensive broadband.

The relationship between broadband and IPTV services is intimate, good and bad news for the Middle East. Broadband penetration is low, partly due to the scarcity of fibre networks in the region and partly due to the high cost. of access.

The telcos in the region have been enjoying rapid growth and successes in emerging markets both inside and out of the Middle East. The domestic markets appear to be on the cusp of offering equally rich rewards as mobile penetration continues to rise and new wireless data services making funds for investment in IPTV readily available.

The UAE situation is a good indicator of what is to come elsewhere. Both du and Etisalat have had fibre infrastructure in place for several years but it is only now that customers are seeing the combined benefits that this can offer.

“IPTV is only one application that these networks permit,” says Ihab Ghattas, assistant president, Huawei Middle East. “There is IPTV, voice, data, high speed internet, video on demand services… you can offer virtually everything. It depends on how aggressive the operator is when moving forward with these plans. But the network itself is future-proof, there is no other better technology available at present,” he adds.

But quality comes at a price and the operators need to recover the cost of this infrastructure fast.

“The operators have to offer more than one single service and IPTV is just one of these services. If customers are using it for high speed internet, gaming and IPTV then the operators can get their return faster and this is very important. They have to generate revenue from more than one of these opportunities,” says Ghattas.

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