Report: IPTV Competitors Are Over-the-Top

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Mark Sullivan 12/5/2012 | 3:05:57 PM

re: Report: IPTV Competitors Are Over-the-Top It's interesting to me that the telcos have laid claim to the term IPTV. I think in 2 years "OTT" will be called IPTV and the U-verse and FiOS walled gardens will be called "lame." That is unless they open up to things like Joost and VeohTV. My two cents.

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rjmcmahon 12/5/2012 | 3:05:57 PM

re: Report: IPTV Competitors Are Over-the-Top It's interesting to me that the telcos have laid claim to the term IPTV.

Yeah it sure makes communications difficult when terms are hijacked. Here are just a few that come to mind:

o ethernet != carrier ethernet
o broadband != FCC broaband
o IPTV != internet tv
o competition != free market competition

So whenever someone starts using such terms they can be saying the exact opposite of what one is interpretting them to say. Seems a bit Orwellain to me.

The loose definition of the term and the often poor correlation between the real life situations people describe as Orwellian and his own dystopian fiction leave the use of the adjective at best inexact and frequently politically inaccurate. In his essay Politics and the English Language, Orwell derides the use of clich+¬ and dying metaphors, which "even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent" and goes on to say "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."

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opticalwatcher 12/5/2012 | 3:05:56 PM

re: Report: IPTV Competitors Are Over-the-Top "It's interesting to me that the telcos have laid claim to the term IPTV."

Actually I posted a message on Light Reading over five years ago how IPTV was coming to mean television from Telco's, and that WebTV (I think I called it Internet TV) was therefore a better term for any non-Telco television over IP.

English, unlike some languages, has no 'official' dictionary (despite some people who like to deputize themselves as language police).

So who knows--as pipes get faster and faster, so anyone can offer a high-definition television experience, maybe IPTV's definition will begin to shift again.

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zwixard 12/5/2012 | 3:05:56 PM

re: Report: IPTV Competitors Are Over-the-Top Telcos can offer their IPTV with QoS. Others' must compete for the remaining bandwidth. When speed and quality matters, I am sure others will be called "TipTV" for Turtle IP TV.

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MorningWd 12/5/2012 | 3:05:53 PM

re: Report: IPTV Competitors Are Over-the-Top I agree with one of the later paragraphs mentioning that carriers will potentially enter into the OTT fray. This would be very easy for them to do, and they would then have the ability to make it easy for the end user to access it. Who would rather watch this type of content on a PC versus a TV? Who better to bridge the gap between the tech-savvy creators of the content and those who aren't "plugged in" to today's world? Enabling Grandma and Grandpa to easily see their grandkids football game on their TV is a powerful advantage that the carrier has for increasing the relevance of OTT content.

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niblick 12/5/2012 | 3:05:52 PM

re: Report: IPTV Competitors Are Over-the-Top I think Telco TV is toast if they simply offer walled garden content similar to Broadcast/Cable TV. Youtube and other web video sites have changed the rules. I think content is not king anymore, it is convenience and context which are the king. Already services like moowee.tv on game consoles such as Wii and PS3 enable users to conveniently access any content, create 100s of channels, and share with anyone.

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