Telecom players dive into OpenIPTV

NINE of the world’s largest telecommunications and consumer electronics companies have joined forces to accelerate the development of global standards for internet protocol television.

AT&T, Ericsson, France Telecom, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Siemens Networks, Sony and Telecom Italia have founded an industry consortium called Open IPTV Forum that will work to define interoperable end-to-end specifications for the delivery of IPTV services.

Open standards could streamline and accelerate deployments of IPTV technologies, the companies said. It would also reduce costs for network operators, content providers and consumer electronics companies, as well as improve services for consumers.

The Open IPTV Forum plans to establish requirements and architecture specifications as well as protocol specifications later in 2007.

Industry observers have welcomed the drive to industry standards, but some have questioned how the absence of Microsoft might affect the success of the Forum’s plans.

Regardless, the Forum members said the opportunities for creating more interactive content services, and the possibilities for better integration of content and communications were worth pursuing.

“The evolving IPTV service has many advantages, including personalization, interactivity and on-demand access for all forms of digital content,” the companies said in a statement.

“Unique possibilities exist for integration of content and communication services offered across mobile handsets and home devices.

“By ensuring the interoperability between consumer equipment and services compliant to the Open IPTV Forum’s specification, the end users can easily access their choice of contents and services among multiple service providers.”

“With this scope in mind, the Open IPTV Forum will work on the basis of suitable open-standards technologies, and will also address key technology elements such as content protection, necessary interfaces that allow IPTV services to be delivered over both managed network environment and the public Internet, and adequate measures to ensure interoperability between such services and retail consumer devices.”

For more IPTV news click here.

200 million chips shipped: Sony

SHIPMENTS of the Sony Felica integrated circuit chips used in contactless smartcards and mobile phones for e-money and public transport payment applications has topped 200 million.

Since 1996, Sony has shipped 160 million Felica chips for use in stored-value and e-money cards – like Suica and Edy in Japan and Octopus in Hong Kong – and 40 million to mobile phones with integrated money applications.

The company said Felica was now the defacto standard in Japan and much of Asia, though the chip has had less exposure in North America and Asia.

Sony said the first 100 million cumulative shipping total took ten years to reach. The second 100 million chips were shipped in 18 months.

Felica is an RFID technology that does not need a battery and is used in contactless reader applications. The chip works when a card or chip-enabled mobile phone is within a few centremetres of a reader, with the transaction taking less than 0.1 seconds.

The immediate popularity of Japan’s Osaifu-Keitai mobile phones – launched in summer 2004 – and rapid expansion of services such as automatic payment for public transportation systems and electronic money settlement have made major contributions to this growth.

In addition to Japan, the Felica cards are used by the Hong Kong Mass Transit Rail Corporation (MTRC) which has also spawned an e-money function, the Singapore ez-Link transport system, as well as other travel cards in Shenzhen in China, Bangkok and India.

The Felica technology is also used for credit transactions, employee ID, building access, membership cards and reward point cards.

For more RFID news click here.