Europe has seen numerous launches, trials and announcements of IPTV services throughout 2005. Much discussion around IPTV has focused on the importance of access to content. In fact, content has been referenced as the single most important aspect of TV over broadband. However, we don’t believe content is "king" in the IPTV realm. By no means are we saying that content is unimportant but it is definitely not the single component of an IPTV offering that will determine the success, or failure, of television over IP.

Content will unquestionably help the telecom operators marketing departments to pitch the TV service to the end consumer. And we have seen how successful Telefónica’s Imagenio has been in fast capturing a sizeable customer base in a mere few months with its exclusive sports content. Content is, after all, what can be easily advertised to the consumer as one of the benefits of subscribing to pay TV over the telephone line.

Maybe content has been referred to as "king" because it was difficult to secure? Procuring premium video content for an IPTV delivery has been challenging for telecom service providers with no experience in such dealings. Unquestionably signing content agreements of this kind was not easy at the dawning of IPTV; and it didn’t come inexpensively according to the pioneers in IPTV delivery. The first operators to start talking about offering TV over IP were small, unknown service providers, with a much localised presence. As the idea of delivering TV over a broadband connection became omnipresent in the industry and media, major studios and television programme producers became more at ease with distributing their content over IP.

What's more, there were fears among content providers about IP technology, which was not well known for video content distribution and with a bad reputation for security breaches. In fact, digital content, because of its high quality, can be copied infinitely without quality loss. Major studios were even less comfortable with the idea of allowing distribution of their content via set top boxes (STBs) with recording features and the possibility of easily forfeiting copyrighted content. In the early days of IPTV, FASTWEB, the Italian alternative service provider to first launch IPTV in Europe, avoided this issue by agreeing not to provide STBs with private video recording functionality in order to secure content for its video on demand service.

Content security concerns have been now overcome and no longer seem to be a challenge for service providers anymore. Nowadays most telecom operators already offering or soon to offer IPTV services have signed distribution agreements for important premium content with major movie studios, premium pay-TV aggregators and producers.

If not content, what then?

So, if content is not king, what is it then? Frost & Sullivan believes it is the overall user experience that will ultimately determine the success or failure of IPTV. First, the experience must be at least equal to that of the current pay TV offerings to become a viable alternative. But that will not be enough. The quality of the user experience will be crucial to determine adoption. This quality includes factors such as the user interface, speed of channel changing, multiple device access to the applications delivered over the television set, and customer service, among others.

The user interface software must be intuitive and simple to use, avoiding multiple menus and submenus for the user to arrive at the desired content. It should also allow for easy personalisation of the TV portal for fast access to preferred content while being transparent to the viewer. The home-based hardware, the STB and the remote control, must be plug-and-play, even when the service provider does the installation; with a remote control that is clean and clear, feature rich and at the same time with the least possible quantity of meaningful command keys. Channel changing must be fast and emulate the speed of over-the-air analogue TV. Furthermore, the viewer will have little tolerance for any latency or loss of signal that may be experienced. Therefore, quality of service in the delivery of the video signal is of paramount importance.

Finally, but not least important, customer service must complement the user experience. To enhance the customer experience, subscribers must be able to troubleshoot any problems they may experience by simply accessing a screen on their TV set. And if the subscriber still needs to reach a customer service centre, regardless of the device used to access it, the customer service agent should have complete visibility of the viewer’s profile, not just on the IPTV service but over all the services the end user subscribes to with the operator.

A holistic end user experience will be the real "king" in IPTV land. The success or failure of television over broadband will be determined by the rounded provisioning of the service which will not simply include content, but also provide reliable and constant signal, superior customer service, and most importantly, a clean cut user interface that will intuitively take the viewer to what they want to see with a few easy commands. After all it’s the interactivity with a service that determines customer satisfaction and repeat usage.

Fernando Elizalde has completed a study entitled "IPTV and Triple Play in Europe -: Telecom Operators Strategies", which will present his analysis of the deployments of television over broadband by European telecom operators. Please watch frost.com for further details or for more information, please contact your Frost & Sullivan account manager +44 (0) 20 7343 8383 or enquiries@frost.com.