In today’s Business section of the New York Times, there is an article by Brian Stelter (December 22, 2009) about a proposal by Apple computer to offer TV subscription packages via the Internet. The article points out that ABC and CBS are actively considering joining the Apple venture. Disney, who owns ABC, was the first major network to sell single TV episodes on ITunes four years ago. In another article on the Wall Street Journal Online website, Sam Schechner claims that Apple wants to start delivering the package sometime in 2010. Another source was quoting the projected offering at $30 a month, using the existing ITunes delivery mechanism. (View article)
While actual deployment may be month away, it is important to remember that the transport mechanism, open Internet over an IP Core will require substantial testing of the end user experience. IPTV is a protocol sensitive to network conditions, like latency and packet loss. Any successful implementation will have to include significant bandwidth allocation testing, as well as load under latency, jitter and packet loss.
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