IPTV delays mean opportunity

ABI research released a report today on IPTV. The overall findings aren’t surprising. IPTV rollout in North America is behind previous projections. The telcos were expected to be the primary drivers, but they have fallen behind schedule, citing excessive regulation among other factors. Even where the telcos have begun rolling out IPTV services, true IPTV services are not available. ABI notes that Verizon’s video service is no more than an RF overlay. If that’s the case, then the telcos have nothing to offer over existing cable services. That leaves them to compete on price. Considering the pounding their voice revenues are taking, one would think they’d rather offer premium services at premium prices.

The telco delay also keeps the pure play IPTV companies in the game a little longer, running the risk that someone will gain traction. Among the gang of three – Brightcove, Akimbo, and Dave – Brightcove has the best chance. First, it’s got good leadership. Second, its initial go to market strategy did not include a proprietary set top box. (Akimbo and Dave are moving away from STBs.) Brightcove has instead hitched its wagon to Microsoft Media Center technology that requires networking the TV and the PC. How many non-geeks are going to try that? Who wants more wires and devices in the living room? This is a recipe for glacial adoption rates.

But what if Brightcove could untether the TV from the home network? Then they might have something. Develop a solution that gives users the option of burning content to DVDs or Video CDs. The digital rights management can be similar to that of online music purchases with the customer is only allowed to burn one or two discs of a downloaded program. Since Brightcove is initially focusing on shorter form, long tail content, this can be a viable alternative. The client application can be designed to download, decompress, and burn in the background. It might add some time to the process, but its service isn’t for the instant gratification crowd anyway.

Back in June, Amazon bought CustomFlix – an on demand DVD distributor. It’s not a leap to imagine a download service evolving from this marriage. The fact is that the longer the telcos delay real IPTV rollouts, the greater the chance they’ll miss the opportunity. What if the likes of Amazon or eBay partner with a Brightcove? The telcos will remain stuck in the dumb pipe business.