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Broadband Access
Analysis
The center of your digital living room
STBs drive the IPTV revolution
by Marty Stein (special to Telecommunications)
While the telecom industry is abuzz over the four-letter word IPTV, this
latest acronym in the alphabet soup of technology vernacular means
little to the average consumer. IPTV is, in fact, the technology making it
possible for a growing number of telcos to offer TV service to their
customers, and many consumers have begun to enjoy this new method
of delivering home entertainment without being aware of the technology
behind it. Consumers may still believe the television set is the most
important piece of hardware, but set-top boxes actually have become
the brains behind the operation and perhaps the most important fixtures
in the home.
IPTV is significantly different from your parents’ cable service. Like their
predecessors, IP set-top boxes still connect to coax cable, but the
similarity ends there. Instead of receiving raw television channels over
coax, the IP set-top boxes are connected to a home network that runs
over the home’s existing coax. HomePNA, the home networking
technology, transforms the coax cables (and phone lines as well) into a
high-speed home network with the advanced features required to deliver
a glitch-free viewing experience.
Widely used protocols such as IP and multicast allow television channel
selection to be done in the network outside the home, with only the
selected channel being sent to the home itself. Motorola developed the
HomePNA-certified VIP1200 set-top box for IPTV that uses the HomePNA
home network to receive high-definition and standard-definition
television. Set-top boxes like the VIP1200 provide a high-quality, digital
video entertainment system that supports broadcast television via
multicast and VoD while offering fast channel switching by means of a
modern easy-to-use interface.
IP set-top boxes also make it easier for users to benefit from everything
attached to their home networks, making it a part of their complete
home network entertainment system. Motorola supplies set-top boxes to
telcos that deploy them as part of their triple-play service installation
models. The set-box uses middleware solutions from suppliers such as
Microsoft that give users access to the features built into the set-top
box. Motorola has now built the complete underlying layer to allow
communication and digital rights management to enable information to
flow between the network and set-top boxes as well as between set-top
boxes in the home.
Even better, the VIP1200 enables cutting-edge, multi-room digital video
recorder (DVR) capabilities, which allow every television in the house to
share one DVR. The DVR capability is featured in Motorola VIP 1216 set-
top boxes that include built-in hard-disk drives.
Telcos can install one DVR set-top box along with two or three lower
cost VIP 1200 set-top boxes in a home. In addition to cost savings, the
multi-room DVR can offer the new “follow me” capability which allows, for
example, the home user to watch a favorite live TV program in the living
room, pause the program, move to the bedroom, and continue to watch
the video stream right where he left off.
One user can also record a show in the bedroom while someone else
simultaneously records another show in the living room. End-time mixing
and playback is all enabled by IP and the set-top box in the IP-based, in-
home network.
HomePNA flexibility
The capabilities of the modern set-top box leverage HomePNA
technology’s flexibility to give users more freedom than ever before.
HomePNA is an industry alliance that develops home networking
standards for triple-play service deployments. HomePNA-certified
products provide the link between the telco’s network, usually a DSL or
fiber connection, and the home’s set-top boxes. HomePNA operates over
existing coax and telephone wires to facilitate interoperability and
convergence of all networked IP data in the home.
HomePNA members include telcos such as AT&T which is deploying its U-
verse IPTV service to markets across the nation. AT&T and other telcos
have agreements with Motorola to supply HomePNA-certified set-top
boxes that support service delivery over existing coax and phone wires,
paving the way for new service offerings that include enhanced and
integrated communications and dynamic delivery of triple-play voice,
video and data content.
In the future, application developers will enhance the consumer’s user
interface to allow access to new capabilities. For example, Motorola’s
set-top boxes now have the ability to enter the public Internet. From
the set-top box you can access a Web interface by presenting a URL to
the set-top box interface; but how that is presented to the user in
terms of the browser is the application developer’s responsibility.
Motorola will soon add more capabilities and more flexibility to the set-
top box itself in terms of the user interfaces and being able to stream IP
voice, video and data services at different rates on different set-top
devices.
The resulting applications will open up many more opportunities for home
networking users to enjoy the IPTV experience today and future
capabilities tomorrow—all right from the living room sofa (or from any
other room with a set-top box and television). Service providers will offer
more choices, improved solutions provided through advanced middleware,
faster chips in the set-top boxes, and more memory to supply thousands
of titles and an Internet-like experience.
Other new experiences will include the ability to connect to your PC via
the home network and access stored photos and music for playback on
your living-room TV and stereo system. Users can expect many of these
up-and-coming media mobility applications to mature in the next three to
four years.
Many home networking technologies are making a play for consumer
attention. The success of HomePNA and set-top equipment like the
VIP1200 illustrate the true value of these technologies to telcos
considering adopting them. The technology is available now and it works
well. All the customer sees is a superior entertainment experience—and
that is all the consumer wants or needs to know.
Marty Stein is the senior director of marketing for Motorola Connected
Home Solutions.
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