Question:
I am looking for a supplier of movie content for my Company?

Response:
While larger service providers or carriers may tend to have internal resources assigned to working directly with the content providers or movie studios for programming needs, smaller service providers or providers initially entering the movie/content delivery business tend to work primarily through content aggregators. Content aggregators provide a significant value in managing the relationships, content acquisition, licensing, and other content distribution requirements across the major movie studios. For movie content, the two most prominent aggregators are CinemaNow (www.cinemanow.com) and Movielink (www.movielink.com). They support both direct retail offerings over the Internet as well as various business models working in conjunction with service providers.

In general, movie studios, content producers, and content aggregators will be most attracted to service providers that provide access to larger numbers of potential content consumers.



Question:
I´m a swedish student working on my masters in Computer Science. I´m about to write an essey about IP-TV. Basically its a research about the biggest or the at the moment leading IP-TV companies in the world. Or the leading companies in this area. I would be very very greatful if you have information in this area and if you could send it to me.

Response:
There are a number of companies involved in the delivery of IPTV--some competitive, some complimentary. The Broadband Services Forum deals with a full spectrum of these companies, so you came to the right place. Now your inquiry is rather broad, so let's start by looking at the various types of companies that are involved in the IPTV value chain. Although there are numerous types of companies required to deliver IPTV, the three dominant categories are:

1) Content Providers - companies that provide the actual TV programming shown on an IPTV system. Example types of content may include sports, movies, dramas, and so on. Some content providers may focus on local content, some

may sell premium content on a subscription or pay-per view basis. Content providers are very important to the success of IPTV since getting the content that you want is the first criterion for subscribing to IPTV. Metrics of leadership for content providers may include viewership ratings and number of markets served. For all segments, revenue makes an excellent leadership metric. BSF content provider members include: Disney, Sony, OnDemand, KIPA (Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency) and Welsh Development Agency.

2) Infrastructure Providers - companies that provide the equipment over which content is encoded, packaged, and transported to the subscriber. There are numerous types of infrastructure providers that participate in an IPTV system. Example products that make up an IPTV solution include network equipment, middleware, encoders, conditional access systems, and set-top boxes. Leadership in this category can be along technical dimensions, number and size of customers, or even end-users served on a vendor's infrastructure products. BSF infrastructure provider members include Alcatel, ECI Telecom, ExtendMedia, Juniper, Microsoft, Nortel, Oracle, Philips, Siemens, Skystream, SupportSoft and Thomson.

3) Service Providers - companies that sell the IPTV service to the end user. Service providers acquire content they believe will be attractive to their customers, and make it available to their customers using equipment and software from the infrastructure providers. They manage the end-user relationship and ensure that the IPTV service is delivered with high quality and reliability. Leadership in this category can be defined by numbers of subscribers, completeness/competitiveness of the IPTV service offered, and speed to market. BSF service provider members include Aliant, BT and Telekom Austria.

Although it is not in the nature of the BSF to praise or criticize individual companies in the IPTV space, each of these categories is indispensable to bringing an IPTV offer to the market, and within them there are several companies with various strengths and value propositions. As a starting point to your study, you may want to research our member companies listed at www.broadbandservicesforum.org