The MPEG-4 clouds are about to part for IPTV deployment by independent telcos. Two major gating factors — access to content and availability of set-top boxes — are about to be resolved, leading to what many expect to be an MPEG-4 IPTV burst by independents.

“It's safe to say there is a lull in the market right now in the independent side awaiting the arrival of MPEG-4 solutions,” said A. Bernardin Arnason, principal of Pivot Group. “I'm not going to say that once MPEG-4 is available we are going to see this momentous wave. But there is a slowdown in deployments because telcos are recognizing the promise of MPEG-4.”

What MPEG-4 will mean to many independents, according to equipment vendors, is greater reach for lower-bandwidth services and more bandwidth to potentially support high-definition TV, if not immediately, then in the foreseeable future. To date, however, the promise of MPEG-4 has been muted by the lack of available content and set-top boxes.

“I can't necessarily say we've seen a dramatic slowdown in IPTV deployments, but there has been a picked-up demand for MPEG-4,” said Geoff Burke, director of field marketing for broadband loop carrier-maker Calix Networks. “Independents can see the writing on the wall, that they need to go to high-definition services. And they need to do so with a technology that allows them the maximum flexibility over the access network.”

“The MPEG-4 set-top boxes are just starting to become available, and that is kind of the last piece to the systems solution,” said Mark Carpenter, president of high-speed access gear-maker Pannaway Technologies.

Carpenter agreed that the market has been in a bit of a lull period, waiting for the set-top boxes to catch up. However, over the last month or so, he has seen a significant uptick in requests for proposals, specifically around triple-play services.

“These are coming from customers or prospects we have been working with for some time,” Carpenter said. “They are starting to get serious about MPEG-4.”

At the same time, according to Arnason and others, there has been a dearth of content options since March when the National Cable Television Cooperative stopped taking new customers. Now a group of the new players mentioned in the main story [see page 28] are launching satellite-based headends in the sky (HITS) services based on MPEG-4, which is an end-to-end solution without the high cost of building individual headends.

“These headends in the sky dramatically seem to alter the economics of deployment, either for folks that have relatively small- to mid-sized line counts or very widely distributed deployment,” Burke said.

With ideal copper loops of 8000 to 12,000 feet and with MPEG-4, companies can expect to deliver 10 Mb/s to 12 Mb/s, enough to support standard-definition IPTV.

That's fairly typical for independents, Carpenter said. MPEG-4 will let the companies deliver the higher bandwidth needed for IPTV to a much broader range of customers, making the business case more solid.

“That telco that was getting 12 Mb/s at 8000 feet and 8 Meg at 12,000 feet, all of a sudden his 12,000 foot loop becomes part of the [IPTV] game,” he said. “The other 80% to 85% can get IPTV services with MPEG-2 today. So now with MPEG-4, you get to serve that remaining 15% to 20% of the serving area.”

Ultimately, MPEG-4 becomes part of the mechanism to deliver high-definition TV, as demand grows and middleware becomes more available.

“It isn't enabling you to do HDTV today — that is really going to dictate that you be within 4000 feet to 5000 feet of your subscriber,” Burke said. “But it allows them to be in position to offer HDTV in the future, once they shorten their loops.”