IPTV: glimmers of hope

The proposed $43 billion National Broadband Network (NBN) commitment to build higher capacity fibre networks throughout much of Australia will need many new applications and services that attract strong customer take-up to eventually justify the long term major NBN investment. This paper canvasses possible future prospects of new IPTV services as part of NBN, and offers some insights from overseas IPTV experience for Australia. Two different international network access case studies are examined, the companies Iliad Free in France and Axia in Canada, and it is postulated how those practices might translate to a new Australian situation with NBN Co. The introduction of IPTV to Australia has the potential to eventually transform the communications environment in term of institutional change for both the telecommunications and broadcasting industries, for communications regulation, and for consumers. The ultimate unknowns are what IPTV players might offer Australian consumers, how they might offer it at what cost both to suppliers and consumers, and how Australians will respond.