The Future Of IPTV (Looks Very Good Indeed)

The Western world likes to consider itself the most current of hemispheres. It sees itself as the half of the globe with the most technological prowess, though today that assertion can definitely be debated. (At least in terms of the stuff taking place in clean rooms and such, the West can likely still claim an upper hand, however.)

But when tossing about market growth numbers and so forth, there’s a lot that shows that those in the East are flying much higher than just about anyone elsewhere.

Take IPTV for instance, a relatively new innovation that, while for many years past had been stuck in figment mode, is now making its way into many markets, and swiftly.

IPTV, short for Internet Protocol Television, has been something sought by telecom companies the world over ever since high-speed broadband lines were laid across great swaths of urban, suburban, and even rural landscapes. The presence of those lines now allows for those inhabiting the telecom industry to contend at last with those in the cable and satellite spheres.

Of course, technologically speaking, IPTV is a technology reserved not only for companies whose businesses were once solely rooted in telephone services. Cable companies with the power to provide high-speed Internet access over thick-gauge copper lines can certainly make headway into the IPTV sector as well. But only since fiber optic cable was lit up for a significant number of residential markets has any large company seriously considered IPTV a viable next-gen solution to home entertainment.

And Asia, as it turns out, will be the continent with the biggest appetite for IPTV in the years to come, according to a forecast made by iSuppli, a research firm which specializes in tracking the goings on in tech sectors around the globe.

Yes, while more and more consumers in the US and Europe will have the chance to siphon broadband-delivered television to their plasma and LCD screens in greater and greater quantities, China and countries surrounding it will very likely see their own IPTV markets boom at rates far more astonishing.

What exactly is meant by “astonishing rates”? The researchers at iSuppli claim that the global market for IPTV, while a sizable $779.2 million in 2006 alone, will jump to $26.3 billion by the end of 2011 – and iSuppli predicts that the majority of subscriptions that contribute to that eventual figure will be made in China. (No pun intended.)

Why will this Asia-centric expansion be so much more phenomenal that those in the West? Well, it’s pretty simple, really. China is a country nearly the size of the US, but with more than quadruple the population. And the country’s wealth is growing extremely quickly. That means more of the 1.3 billion or so Chinese citizens are going to have more money to spend on things - digital entertainment being one of them. Growth in adoption of new technologies in China has already happened in a big way. Just look at the countries cellular makeup. More than 450 million cellular phone owners/subscribers are now part of the fabric of modern China. That’s no doubt a very big number, but when one looks at the specific catalysts for that growth, it’s actually quite easy to understand why China is where it is at the moment, and will be in the years to come.

And we can’t forget China’s successful bid for the 2008 Olympic Summer Games, to be held in Beijing. The presence of such an event ensures that China’s government and various industries will in unison contribute to the advancement of country on the whole. This is presumably to showcase China as a modern, up-to-date nation, of course, but the side effect of the nation’s build-up of its technological infrastructure means more Chinese will be hopping onto the Net and enjoying the fruits of high-speed broadband. One of those fruits is, naturally, IPTV.

All in all, we should do nothing but welcome the expansion of IPTV, as it allows for a better more “connected” experience than that which has been available for the last few decades. The integration of basic television services and properties of the Web world will allow for a very interesting cohesion of, well, lots of things. And the fact that the East is more or less on equal footing with the West (in many ways, it’s the other way around, really) means that more people will see more of everything, and well, that’s a great thing all around, no?