British Telecom plans to launch an internet TV service aimed at the UK’s Indian community that will allow viewers to watch Bollywood films without having to wait for their release in the country.
British Telecom believes that the Indian community in Britain is poorly served for entertainment. UK cinemas rarely show Bollywood films, whereas in India they are available 24/7 and hence niche entertainment through a platform like internet makes sense!
On the other hand UTStarcom said Friday it signed a deal to sell its Internet protocol television system in India.
UTStarcom Inc is working with a local partner, AKSH Optifibre Ltd. on the project. New Delhi-based Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. will provide the existing network for the service.
Customers (in New Delhi and Mumbai for now) will be able to use the service to see television programs that aired up to one week in the past. They’ll also get video and music on demand.
So it seems like IPTV is quickly coming up as an alternate way to deliver content.. Could it be the future is the question? Recently bill gates predicted that he saw the TV and the PC converging in the next 5 years! I had a recent discussion on this with a friend who begged to disagree. He made me read a paragraph from convergence culture a book written by henry jenkins which basically stated that our needs at different times are different and hence a black box which has all the features of a TV and Internet may not really work as i may use the same features at different times to satisfy different needs. Fo example: An IPTV which records my favourite programme can be watched later for family viewing. While a palm top or a laptop will be used for personal computing and entretainment like email, watching movies alone, listening to songs etc etc while a mobile phone would be used for voice communication and personal computing when im on the move. So at different times a different device with the same features of communication and entertainment.
After reading the paragraph i feel there will be different kinds of people one kind who will be happy with one device (tv and pc convergence) providing all and the others who would want different devices for different times.
