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BT is said to be planning to bundle a YouView IPTV box with its broadband BT Total Broadband packages at some time during the first part of next year. YouView an open technical standard for bringing subscription free broadband based in UK internet connected TV services like BBC’s iPlayer, 4oD and ITV Player directly into homes via the special £100 plus Settop Boxes.
The move does not come as a surprise, BT offers similar promotions via its existing internet TV service, BT Vision. In addition, the operator has already revealed that current Vision customers can expect an upgrade to support the new YouView technology.
The Director of BT Vision, Andy Baker said: “When YouView launches in the first half of next year, BT will offer the service to consumers via a variety of packages. YouView may be offered at special rates as part of new or improved broadband packages.”
BT has admitted that its current BT Vision service has not exactly lived up to their expectations. Some early predictions were known to target 1-2 Million customers, yet to date they have only managed to secure a not unrespectable total of 520,000.
TV remains a very difficult field to win, not least due to its dominance by Sky TV, Virgin Media UK and the lack of an adequate broadband infrastructure that support IPTV with viable streaming. BT probably has not helped its position in this market by considering a plan to sell ad space on its service, which will risk making it even less attractive to consumers.
However the situation is improving and BT will soon leverage its new “Fibre” based FTTC up to 40Mbps and FTTH/P up to 110Mbps services to support YouView, despite its poor coverage 40% of UK premises by 2012. The operator has also developed a new Content Delivery Network CDN to assist both itself and other ISPs in adopting the service.
TalkTalk has made no secret about its own ambition to launch a YouView service next year and, like BT, it is also constructing a CDN of its own.
As it stands, YouView remains in untested grounds in the commercial world and consumers will ultimately be the ones to decide whether the service is worth having or not. There is a definite demand for an alternative to Sky’s costly Satellite TV and Virgin’s Cable offerings, although beating those two is no easy task.
It’s worth pointing out that one of the reasons for BT and TalkTalk’s noted opposition to Net Neutrality the principal of treating all internet traffic as equal is because it risks impeding their ability to sign unique content deals for new broadband based TV content. Of course going the TV route means seeing the likes of YouTube as a competitor and TalkTalk would love to charge Google for that.Image may be NSFW.
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