Today IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) or OTT (Over the Top) solutions are essential for service providers if they want to offer the best possible TV experience to their customers.
IPTV and OTT solutions differentiate in business model, quality of service, content, ownership and also cost, all of which affect the operators’ business. At Beenius we are keeping in mind all the factors, limitations and needs of our customers when we provide them with tailored end2end solutions of the ecosystem.
At the end of the day operators can choose between IPTV and OTT or decide for the combination of both, but they need to know the basic differences before choosing the solution:
Comparison Category | OTT ( Over the Top) | IPTV ( Internet Protocol TV) |
Content Delivery | Uses open internet, un-managed network. Open ecosystem; | Uses dedicated, managed network. Walled garden ecosystem; |
Network Type | Delivered from content provider / aggregator to the viewer using open network. Usage of CDN; | Closed, proprietary network, accessed via a specific internet service provider |
Network Relationship | Without the need for intervening carriage negotiations, or infrastructure investments | Services are delivered on optimized and custom high bandwidth network |
Delivery Protocol | Delivered over HTTP / TCP, a connected transport protocol. Movement towards adaptive streaming technologies HLS (Apple), Smooth Streaming (MS) and HDS (Adobe); | IPTV uses Transport Stream (TS) transmission technology. Uses RTP (Real time protocol) over UDP, a connectionless protocol; |
Content Catalog | Widely used for freemium and economical subscription VOD; | Used primarily for premium VOD and real time content delivery like broadcast TV; |
Routing Topology | Unicast (HTTP), Simulated Multicast (UDP/TCP); | Multicast. Initial unicast burst during channel change leading to Multicast join; |
Service Category | Complementary Service; | Main service, similar to Satellite/Cable TV services; |
Key Benefits | Low cost, flexible model, Easy to manage and operate; | High quality of service and quality of experience. Monitoring and control, interactive services; |
With Beenius Interactive TV platform service provider can build many different business scenarios combining different client apps:
– IPTV (only STB),
– IPTV with OTT on mobile devices,
– OTT only on mobile devices,
– OTT only on STBs and /or TV,
– OTT only on TV or
– OTT on STBs, TV, and mobile devices.
What today operators must offer to their viewers is already guided by market trends and end users expectations, and so there are TV features which are mandatory to be part of operator’s package.
Basic TV features enabled by Beenius Interactive TV platform typically are: | Advanced features enabled by Beenius Interactive TV platform are: |
Live TV | T-Commerce support |
Video on demand | Enhanced advertising |
Recommendations | Permanent recordings |
Catch up TV | Network PNR and Local PVR |
Customized Theme | Subscription Visibility |
Content Monetization | Movie variants |
Multilanguage support | |
Colibry, client application by Beenius |
If you want to learn more about Beenius end2end solutions for the IPTV and OTT deployments please contact Beenius Representative and ask for demo presentation. To learn more about industry and Beenius interactive TV Platform, subscribe to our blog today.