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In positive sign for a technology that some researchers say needs more wide-ranging content and quality, a Slovenian telecom company is reporting that its IPTV (News - Alert) subscriber base has grown 600 percent.

 

Officials at TUS Telekom say that since it began using Swedish firm Dreampark’s so-called “Dreamgallery” middleware, it’s served about 19,800 subscribers – or 3.3 percent of the nation’s IPTV market.

 

According to TUS’ chief executive officer, Marko Fujs, the company didn’t want to be bound to one set-top box, or “STB,” from one vendor, so that if it decided to change its current STB to another browser-based solution, integration would be easier.

 

“Basically Dreampark (News - Alert) offered an almost plug and play solution with integration of all vendors completed within a very short six weeks,” Fujs said.

 

As TMCnet reported, during a review of one London-based communications company’s new high-definition video-on-demand offering through IPTV, researchers concluded that far more is needed in order to compete with online DVD rental or device-based VoD services.

 

Researchers at Ovum (News - Alert) say they liked the IPTV offering from British Telecommunications plc for its quality – but found the range of content available lacking, among other things, and found that IPTV must provide a better quality of experience, not just cost-savings, in order to earn its piece of the market.

 

According to Helena Schwenk, a senior analyst at the firm, BT (News - Alert) hampers its service by failing to provide instant access to requested HD films. They’re pushed to a hard disk located in the customer’s DVR, Schwenk said, and movies take at least five hours to download.

 

“The main problem is that it doesn’t represent a preferable alternative to either online DVD rental stores or the growing number of device-based VoD services that bypass network operators and take the content directly from Internet to the TV set-top box,” Schwenk said.

 

The IPTV market is a fertile one.

 

In one sign of the Internet’s widely discussed migration to a video-based space – a change that experts say will require major advances in video compression – nearly one in five U.S. households who use the Web watch TV broadcasts online, a recent survey says.

 

The figure marks a 100 percent increase from 2006, according to a pair of Manhattan-based agencies: The Conference Board, a nonprofit organization, and market research firm TNS (News - Alert).

 

Officials at Dreampark say they use a so-called “Dreamgallery Hybrid Concept” that offers customers regular digital TV services together with new interactive content through IPTV.

In a hybrid set up, company officials say, TV channels may be received through any of the sources supported by the STB or IP.

 

Here’s how the company diagrams the hybrid concept:

 

 

Officials at TUS say that with Dreamgallery, the company can keep its existing Motorola STBs and have the option to integrate several STB suppliers within one system, as well as integrate Verimatrix conditional access and a VOD server from Edgeware.

TUS also says it gained options for expanding its existing services including broadband Internet, VoIP and mobile telephony, such as enabling IPTV subscribers to schedule PVR recordings remotely through their mobile phones.