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I’ve already discussed what is IPTV last year, so I wanted to follow-up with a series of articles on Why IPTV?

In other words,  why should anyone care about IPTV? Speaking about the why’s of IPTV also means talking about the many benefits of IPTV over technologies like Cable and Satellite TV.

Essentially, IPTV enables much more interactivity than other TV delivery methods, because it uses IP-based technology. That means that IPTV is more web-like which means that it can use some of the same technology, software and equipment for Internet video delivery or streaming. Interactivity via IP is what makes IPTV special. Now, it should be noted that we are just in the beginning stages of interactive TV applications. Providers like AT&T and Verizon are using IPTV in very cool ways.

Twitter on FiOS TV

For example, Verizon allows users to use Twitter on their TV screen via FiOS TV. It’s not the full Twitter experience, but subscribers can tweet about what show they are watching, or read messages from friends while watching TV. This is the start of Social TV–the fusing of social media and TV. It’s going to be big.

In Portugal, local telecom company Sonaecom has Wikipedia on its IPTV service. It calls the service Clixopedia, named after its service called Clix TV. Accedo Broadband, a provider of interactive services like video games, was the vendor for Sonaecom.

And these are just the tip of the iceberg. Other telcos around the world have enabled things like interactive ads, TV shopping, multi-screens TV, video games, remote DVR programming, TV widgets, and lots more. Cable and satellite providers don’t have the infrastructure and back-channel IP support to handle these features easily.

But as a whole IPTV service providers aren’t using interactive elements to their full advantage.  Primarily, that’s because these telcos are spending lots of time and money to roll-out these TV services, and aren’t putting much attention to adding new interactive features–yet.  Larger providers, like AT&T and Verizon are leading the way, especially with the addition of Twitter and Facebook.

So far, IPTV brings with it the promise of the future of interactive TV. Cable technology, like DOCSIS 3.0, Tru2Way and EBIF have been slow to come to market and don’t bring the richness that IPTV allows. The future, it seems, is with IP.