In what’s being billed as “the world’s largest commercial launch of cable IPTV to date,” Korean telco SK Broadband is rolling out IPTV to its customers on a variety of networks including hybrid fiber-coax, DSL, and fiber optic systems.
The first Korean operator to launch video-on-demand, SK Broadband has a total of 6 million customers. The new service is initially going out to customers in the Seoul metro area, and will be rolled out to other regions over the course of the year.
SK becomes the latest MSO to use what’s known as a “CMTS bypass” – going around the cable modem termination system to deliver IPTV using a technology known as “edge QAMs.” Short for quadrature amplitude modulation, QAMs are essentially the vehicle used to deliver digital cable services; edge QAMs are capable of delivering multiple traffic types – video-on-demand, switched digital video streams, voice, data, etc. Edge QAMs is considered a cheaper solution than going through the CMTS.
SK Broadband has tapped the Direct-2-Edge system, from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Harmonic Inc. (HLIT), to enable its IPTV service. Direct-2-Edge comprises an edge QAMs system along with Harmonic’s control software.
While the bypass solution is being rapidly embraced by operators in Europe and Asia, the Tier 1 providers in the United States are still deciding among a range of options to deliver IPTV to their subscribers.
