Soon, video conferences from your living rooms

Telecoms may kick off commercial IPTV services bundled with video calling technology

HYDERABAD: The rush to make the idiot box smarter with offerings like IPTV and video-on-demand could also make video-calling from one’s own living room a reality soon.

At least five telecoms that are also looking to kick off commercial IPTV services have already tested video calling technologies and could launch the services early next year, industry official said. Most of these are sourcing the technology from multinational video conferencing company Polycom Inc.

While video conferencing is already available from Reliance Webworlds, the difference this time round however is that the facility from various operators will be available directly in consumers’ homes on the regular broadband connections either on copper and fibre, where available.

Confirming the development Yugal Sharma, Polycom country manager India & SAARC, said: “Trials have been completed with service providers and they could launch services by 2008.” Those who have tested it include BSNL, Reliance Communications, Airtel, Sify, Tulip and Aircel. Polycom is also talking to several operators to bundle its video conferencing solutions and PVX video conferencing software on IPTV platforms expected to be launched soon in the country.

While Reliance Communications announced a tie up with Microsoft and plans to launch IPTV in March next year, BSNL, MTNL and a few other telecom have already kicked off the services on a limited scale in the country. “We do not see a big market for IPTV, the demand for video calling is huge and we hope to launch it soon,” said a senior BSNL official.

Though the equipment currently costs Rs4,000, it could even be available at around Rs2,000 with enough volumes, he felt. Polycom will supply the V500 set top box that comes integrated with a camera and costs $2000 in the US. In India it could be cheaper given the high volumes here, Sharma added.  Operators are mulling two kinds of tariff plans based on either rentals and fixed charges or per minute charges for video calling.

Currently, there are four major content and IPTV technology providers in the country including IOL Broadband Ltd., in Mumbai, Akash in Delhi, DiviNet in Pune and ORG-HFCL which is set to kick off in Delhi soon, industry sources said.

The latest to join the party will be Reliance Communication which will ride the Microsoft Mediaroom platform to launch IPTV while Goldstone Technologies ready to kick off from Hyderabad.