Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the founders of Skype, are set to launch a global broadband television service in 2007, promising viewers, content owners, advertisers the best of the internet coupled with the best of TV. The project is The Venice Project.
The project is a type of IPTV where a digital television service is delivered using the Internet Protocol over a network infrastructure. The advantages of IPTV include interactive and personalized service, video-on-demand (VOD) and convergence of ICT services.
Traditionally, there are two main hurdles for IPTV - bandwidth and content protection. Friis and Zennstrom believe they have pretty good answer to these problems.
IPTV is very sensitive to packet loss and delays. The bandwidth demand for IPTV is a huge leap as compared to VOIP. On average, Skype only uses 3-16 kbps while IPTV starts with hundreds of kbps. However, Friis believes that the bandwidth available to the general household has reached a point where IPTV is ready for the prime time.
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