We may not all have NBN-level access speeds, but increasingly we’re adopting IPTV for our television watching, with a recent study concluding that one in ten subscription TV services are being delivered over broadband.
The Telsyte study concludes that some 300,000 households — bearing in mind that, give or take there’s somewhere in the region of 7.8 million households in Australia according to census data, of which somewhere around 6 million have broadband access — have adopted IPTV services. Telsyte’s research suggests that IPTV is picking up traction because it’s hitting the sweet spot of not being as expensive as PayTV but offering enough variety over existing free to air options. It’s also looking rosy for IPTV in the NBN-equipped future, with the study’s author, Chris Coughlan, stating that
“Foxtel faces a dilemma as distribution over the NBN requires it to become a retail service provider supplying broadband access, something that its majority shareholder, Telstra, might be reticent to allow. It also faces challenges with regard to margin erosion if it follows suit with cut-down offerings”
[Telsyte]
Big Windows
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 3:08 PMYay
Ollie
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 3:26 PMOk, now for some lovely Gizmodo fact checking. Most of these IPTV connections will actually be over ADSL, as NBN & RSPs are still arguing over IP Multicast fees (I believe the latest was that they technically wanted 1:1 same pricing as a normal connection).
So NBN has nothing to do with it at the moment. Once they sort that sh!t out, and NBN becomes more common, then I think you will see IPTV really take off.
Alex Kidman
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 4:30 PMWhere, pray tell, did I say they were NBN connections? The only mention is in the intro — which is in relation to NBN speeds, but not connections — and in the quote, which relates to the NBN in the future. What facts would you like me to check?
Ed
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 9:09 PMburn
Si
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 3:29 PMyep, 300000 households in Australia have a fast enough connection for IPTV, the rest of us can’t stream fast enough
Titsnass
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 3:43 PMI really wish iPrimus had a decent IPTV service. You can get unlimited downloads if you have a bloody Tivo. Otherwise zip. I just re-upped for their 500gb plan too, which is not bad, I get between ten & eleven mps.
wsDK_II
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 7:21 PMi know that Telstra has over 300,000 T-Boxes sold, so that is at least 300,000 IPTV customers.
Giz, are you able to investigate if Telstra are deploying more then the 9 BP channels i get for free? I know i can get all the AFL games on my T-Box, but what about Netflix stuff (i know about the Foxtel on T-Box as well, and i have that and it is aweosme, but i want more :P)
thanks.
Michael
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 1:23 AMAll we need now is ISPs to have better data limits, and we will be set.
Adrian
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 8:48 AMThe big problem with IPTV is that the content providers are not encoding closed captions (subtitles), which means that viewers with a hearing disability can’t really use the service. And before you go, “oh that’s about 1% of the population”, remember that we have an aging population in Australia which means that people will have trouble hearing TV just because of the normal deterioration due to age (or heavy metal rock bands when they were much much younger!)..
Jon
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 11:11 AMI guess it is pretty obvious why News LTD papers are so anti NBN. They can see the writing on the wall for their high margin Pay TV business as well as their antiquated print business, add cheap or free digital downloads of their movie content and it all spells a whole world of hurt. Adapt or die Rupert.
NickT
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 7:45 PMI saw the picture of the t-box and had to comment…. We’ve had 3 of these… And they’ve all gone back. Terrible, terrible product. Please, before you rush out and get one, check out google for a long list of people having problems with them.