IPTV Test & Measurement Tools Are Key to Keeping Customers, Report Finds

IPTV Test & Measurement Tools Are Key to Keeping Customers, Report Finds

To retain customers, service providers, among others, must provide a satisfactory quality of digital video QoE for users, says Light Reading's Insider

NEW YORK, May 21 /PRNewswire/ -- As demand for rich media and TV content continues to grow among consumers, the delivery of digital video at an acceptable quality of experience (QoE) for the user becomes ever more important to service providers, content owners, and equipment vendors whose infrastructure underpins the networks, according to the latest report from Light Reading Insider (www.lightreading.com/insider), a paid research service of TechWeb's Light Reading (www.lightreading.com).

IPTV & Digital Video QoE: Test & Measurement Update analyzes the technical challenges in measuring a user's digital video QoE, comparing alternative technologies and summarizing work on standardization. It explains how different approaches are needed at different points in the lifecycle of a digital video service and picks out some of the key trends in this evolving market. This report identifies and compares the differences between vendors, including those with T&M, service assurance, TV, and telecom heritages, and profiles 17 of the leading players in this fragmented and complex market space.

For a list of companies analyzed in this report, please see:
http://img.lightreading.com/lri/pdf/lri0509_2companies.pdf

"There is pressure on service providers to ensure that users' QoE is high enough that they do not want to churn with an alternative provider," says Danny Dicks, research analyst for Light Reading Insider and coauthor of the report. "While a move toward multiple service bundles may be good for subscriber acquisition, retention, and revenues, the complexity of delivering multiple services over a single network is considerable - not least in terms of measuring the QoE."

The core issue is how to gather, combine, and use data to predict and evaluate QoE at various stages of a service lifecycle, Dicks notes. "Service providers and broadcasters have evolved numerous ways to this, bearing in mind the constraints they face," he says. "Measuring users' QoE, though, is a technical challenge: What is needed is to identify the right combination of measurable attributes of the network and application, and the right way of combining them, at the appropriate points in the life cycle of the service, and the right points in the network."

Key findings of IPTV & Digital Video QoE: Test & Measurement Update include:

-- Consumer expectations of IPTV and other digital video services are
growing, and service providers are looking to meet QoE expectations to
attract subscribers and minimize churn.
-- Predicting the quality of a video requires a complex assessment of
network transmission and application-layer parameters, combined in a
way that models human perception
-- There are several competing technologies for measuring digital video
QoE; application-layer metrics are becoming more significant
-- Standardization is running behind the industry's need for effective
solutions
-- Vendors from both the TV and telecom industries are converging on the
QoE test and measurement space
-- Continuous monitoring is increasingly required as services bed down

IPTV & Digital Video QoE: Test & Measurement Update is available as part of an annual single-user subscription (12 monthly issues) to Light Reading Insider, priced at $1,595. Individual reports are available for $900 (single-user license).

To subscribe, or for more information, please visit: www.lightreading.com/insider. For more information on all of Light Reading's Insider services, please visit www.lightreading.com/research.

To request a free executive summary of the report, or for details on multi-user licensing options, please contact:

Jeff Claudino
Director of Sales
Insider Research Services
619-229-9940
claudino@lightreading.com
Press/analyst contact:

Dennis Mendyk
Managing Director
Insider Research Services
201-587-2154
mendyk@heavyreading.com

About Light Reading

Founded in 2000, Light Reading (www.lightreading.com) is the leading online media, research, and focused event company serving the $3 trillion worldwide communications market. Lightreading.com is the ultimate source for technology and financial analysis of the communications industry, leading the media sector in terms of traffic, content, and reputation. Light Reading's research arms, Heavy Reading and Pyramid Research, provide the most comprehensive communications research, market data, and technology analysis in close to 100 markets around the world. Light Reading produces nearly 20 targeted communications events including TelcoTV, Ethernet Expo New York and Ethernet Expo London, The Tower Summit @ CTIA, and Optical Expo, as well as focused one-day events tailored for cable, mobile, and wireline executives. Light Reading was acquired by United Business Media in August 2005 and operates as a unit of TechWeb.

About TechWeb

TechWeb (techweb.com/aboutus), the global leader in business technology media, is an innovative business focused on serving the needs of technology decision-makers and marketers worldwide. TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed media brands in the business technology market. Today, more than 13.3 million* business technology professionals actively engage in our communities created around our global face-to-face events Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat and VoiceCon; online resources such as the TechWeb Network, Light Reading, Intelligent Enterprise, InformationWeek.com, bMighty.com, and The Financial Technology Network; and the market leading, award-winning InformationWeek, TechNet Magazine, MSDN Magazine, Wall Street & Technology magazines. TechWeb also provides end-to-end services ranging from next-generation performance marketing, integrated media, research, and analyst services. TechWeb is a division of United Business Media, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

* 13.3 million business decision-makers: based on # of monthly connections

About United Business Media Limited

UBM (UBM.L) focuses on two principal activities: worldwide information distribution, targeting and monitoring; and, the development and monetization of B2B communities and markets. UBM's businesses inform markets and serve professional commercial communities - from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists - with integrated events, online, print and business information products. Our 6,500 staff in more than 30 countries are organized into specialist teams that serve these communities, bringing buyers and sellers together, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently. For more information, go to http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com/.

Source: Light Reading Insider

CONTACT: Jeff Claudino, Director of Sales, Insider Research Services,
+1-619-229-9940, claudino@lightreading.com; or Press/analyst contact, Dennis
Mendyk, Managing Director, Insider Research Services, +1-201-587-2154,
mendyk@heavyreading.com

Web Site: http://www.lightreading.com/

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