China’s fixed line operators are looking to triple play/IPTV to drive revenue and subscriber growth. In a positive step to support multi-play service offerings, the Ministry of Information announced yesterday that it intends to study and resolve the bottlenecks telecom operators now face in launching IPTV, VOD, and other advanced IP services nationwide. This latest development comes as encouraging news to China Telecom and China Netcom executives as they prepare to meet at the 4th annual China Broadband Triple Play/IPTV Conference and China DSL Conference in Beijing.

According to Mr Jiang Lintao, Conference Chair and Chief Engineer of China Academy of Telecom Research, MII, The future prosperity of fixed line operators hinges on deploying multi-play services and the need to make these services profitable. Events like China Broadband Triple Play/IPTV and China DSL offers the industry a timely forum for exchanging ideas and knowledge to further develop the multi-play services business and market, as well as overcome challenges whether they are technical or regulatory in nature.

With broadband readily available nationwide, and voice, data and video now being unified over a common network, the time is right to focus on delivery of revenue enhancing multimedia services. Upcoming events such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics are seen as catalysts for promoting IPTV services as well as attracting subscribers. In a new study, market researcher ABI forecasts IPTV take up in mainland China to pass the 23 million subscriber mark by 2012. Currently there are 369 million fixed line subscribers of which 52.3 million are broadband users. Around 70 percent of broadband connections in China are through DSL technology.

This is an important year for carriers committed to multi-play services and the event will be a significant opportunity to discuss the major issues for growth, stated Mr Wei Leping, CTO of China Telecom who is scheduled to deliver an address at the Conference. Also speaking at the China Broadband Triple Play/IPTV and China DSL are senior officials and executives from Ministry of Information Industry, China Telecom, China Netcom, Telecommunication Standards Research Institute of CATR, Alcatel-Lucent, BroadLight, Centillium Communications, Cisco Systems, EXFO, Jungo, IXIA, PMC-Sierra, SupportSoft, Teknovus, Texas Instruments, UTStarcom, ZTE.

For more information, please contact Vicky Wong +852-28651118 or email: vicky.wong@infoexws.com or log on to: http://www.china-tripleplay-iptv.com.