Huawei and IPTV specialist Irdeto have partnered to provide Pakistan Telecommunication Co. Ltd (PTCL) with Pakistan’s first end-to-end IPTV solution, set to launch to a ‘first phase’ group of 20,000 subscribers in 1H07.
According to Irdeto CEO Graham Kill, the Netherlands-based content security specialist’s cooperation with Huawei will allow the Chinese vendor to combine its IPTV infrastructure technology with Irdeto’s IPTV content security solution, which encrypts and protects content from the video on demand server to the set-top box on broadband platforms.
“Irdeto and Huawei entered into a strategic partnership earlier this year to jointly provide end-to-end solutions into the worldwide IPTV market, and the new deal outlined with PTCL is projected to be just the first of many IPTV advances generated by that partnership,” said Kill.
The Pakistani telecoms market is currently growing at an exceptional rate, with overall teledensity in the country increasing by 15% from year-end 2005 to year-end 2006, according to the ITU.
However, internet penetration in the country stood at a mere 2.5 million at the end of 2006 – 57,000 of whom were broadband users. Pakistan’s average GDP per capita is just US$2,000, and this factor, in combination with low PC penetration rates, is likely to make the creation of a viable business model for the roll-out of advanced IPTV services in the Pakistani market a challenge for Etisalat-backed PTCL.
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