IPTV Rollout in Shanghai

Shanghai-also known as the Pearl of the Orient-has become a world-class metropolis, largely thanks to China's wide-ranging economic reforms over the last decade.

And as the city-China's largest and the eighth largest in the world-has evolved, so its residents have become increasingly sophisticated, with the result that their consumption of telecommunications services has grown, and is continuing to grow, rapidly.

Shanghai Telecom, a branch of China Telecom, is currently China's leading broadband service supplier, servicing the needs of more than 2.1 million broadband users-each generating a monthly ARPU of 130 yuan-as of the end of first quarter of 2006.

In collaboration with Shanghai Media Group, a leading TV content provider, Shanghai Telecom launched a commercial trial of IPTV in 2005.

IPTV-the transmission of TV signals across the IP infrastructure of the Internet-has rapidly become a must-have technology amongst the telcos of the world and, recognising this commercial fact, Shanghai Telecom has decided to expand its IPTV network coverage in the city. 

Project overview

With this in mind, Shanghai Telecom issued a series of Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for its IPTV project in April of this year.

The RFPs were made to a variety of companies, including Alcatel, Huawei, Shanghai Bell, Siemens, UT Starcom and ZTE, with ZTE being jointly awarded the project along with another vendor, on the basis of the strong performance and service generating ability of its IPTV solutions.

As if to underline the importance of IPTV in modern telecommunications, China Telecom has already begun the rollout of a series IPTV trials to several other cities across China.

After three months' hard work, ZTE developed a highly integrated IPTV platform that can offer subscribers a wide range of value added services.

 In early September, China Telecom and Shanghai Media Group began allocating a range of IPTV-enabled telephone lines across Shanghai, starting the ball rolling for the commercial deployment of the technology in the city.

The launch marked a new stage in the development of IPTV in China and, as you might expect, attracted considerable worldwide attention.

In the first phase of the commercial project, Shanghai Telecom plans to roll out the IPTV service to around 100,000 subscribers, who will be offered around 3,000 hours of video-on-demand programming, as well as 72 TV channels, each conforming to the H.264 transmission standard.

ZTE's involvement in the project centres on the provision of around 50,000 subscriber lines, with a capability of servicing 25,000 concurrent users, each of whom is supported by a complete transmission system that includes encoders, middleware, video-on-demand servers, set-top boxes and an operational support system.    

On the back of this ambitious rollout, Shanghai Telecom has said it hopes to have 80,000 subscribers signed up to its new service by the end of 2006, at which stage the IPTV network will be the largest commercial network of its type in China, as well as largest H.264 standard IPTV deployment in the world.  

Project highlights

• The H.264 solution

ZTE used the H.264 stream format to deliver high quality video at a bit rate of 1.5 Mbps using an ADSL broadband architecture. Thanks to the use of the H.264 video encoding protocol, the network's bandwidth requirement is minimised, whilst maintaining excellent picture quality at any given bit rate.

ZTE believes that the adoption of H.264 technology can save on equipment costs in every part of the network, including streaming severs, storage and bearer network systems.

Rich services

In the first phase of the rollout, subscribers are offered a range of basic video services, including TV broadcasts, video-on-demand, time-shifted TV and a network-based personal video recorder. On top of this, subscribers can also enjoy a range of media sharing and remote medical services.

Plans call for the time-shifted TV function to be promoted to subscribers as a key benefit, since it allows users to view their favourite TV programs at a time of their choosing, without making the same network demands that narrowcasting (one-to-one transmission) imposes.

An expanded range of services is always vital for carriers as potential money-spinners. Shanghai Telecom plans to deploy a wide range of value-added services to subscribers as the service evolves and ZTE is committed to assisting the company in rolling out further compelling IPTV services including:

Karaoke-Karaoke enjoys considerable popularity in the Asia-Pacific area. The IPTV Karaoke service allows customers' home equipment to become a Karaoke box with an endless variety of song options that are available 24 hours a day. With killer applications such as interactive games and Karaoke, ZTE believes that IPTV will become a key enabler for home entertainment.

Online stock information-Using a Web browser embedded in the set-top box, customers can receive real time stock information and analysis charts through their IPTV-connected screens without having to subscribe to stock exchange data. Plans call for this service to be extended to include online share dealing services in the future.

Video conferencing-Multiple parties can communicate via the IPTV terminal. IPTV video communication allows users to make interactive videophone calls, as well as edit their contact lists.

Flexible expandability

IPTV represents a unique business opportunity that could be an operator's new growth point. Shanghai Telecom is set for a large-scale IPTV rollout.

In the first phase, the network adopted a distributed network architecture; with further IPTV deployments made by simply adding new components and new layers.

The video distribution network proposed for the second phase of the rollout consists of a two-layer architecture with one central node and 15 edge nodes.

The distribution network can then be expanded flexibly, and so satisfy the differentiated requirements at any stage.

To meet the requirement for centralised operation and management, a unified service management server is provided which gives other content providers or service providers a single interface, so supporting the addition of new services in the future.

ZTE's next-generation based IPTV system delivers a number of distinct advantages in terms of network planning, service operation, picture quality and can help fixed-line operators realise extra profits by cost-effectively supporting a wide range of customer-focused services.