- Industry: Consulting
- Number of terms: 1807
- Number of blossaries: 2
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The previously described business models define the total IPTV subscriber market, with each representing an STB installed in a home and capable of receiving some form of IPTV. The STB may be free, rented or bought by the customer. Additional services such as premium channels, VOD and person-to-person video-calling can only be sold only after a subscriber has an STB.
In certain specific cases consumers receive IPTV for “free” or by default as part of a “triple play” bundle of wireline voice, IPTV/video and broadband Internet. In other words, IPTV is supplied to them whether they want it or not — they do not really make a choice to buy it.
These subscribers receive from their IPTV provider a “free” STB and access to a small selection of channels, in return for signing a longer-term contract for broadband or a voice/broadband package. This category of IPTV subscriber does not have an equivalent in the existing pay-TV environment. It reflects the need for new IPTV operators to find ways to popularize the service.
Hong Kong provides a good example. The carrier PCCW offers all its long-term broadband customers a “free” STB and access to a small number of channels. Though many of these customers may choose to buy extra channels, a sizable proportion stick with only the free channels — if, indeed, they use the IPTV service at all.
In France, the carrier Free offers all its subscribers a home gateway device with STB capability built-in. All Free’s customers who live close enough to its asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL)-enabled exchanges receive a selection of basic IPTV channels automatically for no extra payment.
Industry:Technology
Gartner defines total cost of ownership (TCO) a comprehensive assessment of information technology (IT) or other costs across enterprise boundaries over time. For IT, TCO includes hardware and software acquisition, management and support, communications, end-user expenses and the opportunity cost of downtime, training and other productivity losses.
SummaryArticle NameTotal Cost of Ownership (TCO)Gartner, Inc.Gartner, Inc.DescriptionTCO is a comprehensive assessment of information technology (IT) or other costs across enterprise boundaries over time.
Industry:Technology
Number of individual (mobile) network connections at the end of a given period. In this regard, multiple SIM cards bearing one number would count as one connection, while two numbers associated with one SIM card would count as two connections. Prepaid SIM cards would count as one connection, provided that they are in operation at the end of the given year. Total connections include connections that are inactive but still in operation.
Industry:Technology
Analog cellular standard first used in the U.K. for services in the 900MHz frequency band. It allows up to 1,320 channels using 25kHz channel spacing.
Industry:Technology
Tokenization refers to a process by which a piece of sensitive data, such as a credit card number, is replaced by a surrogate value known as a token. The sensitive data still generally needs to be stored securely at one centralized location for subsequent reference and requires strong protections around it. The security of a tokenization approach depends on the security of the sensitive values and the algorithm and process used to create the surrogate value and map it back to the original value.
Industry:Technology
The set time period before a terminal system performs some action. Typical uses include a poll release (when a terminal is disconnected if the time-out period elapses before keying resumes) or an access time out (when a terminal on a local-area network is prevented from transmitting for a specified time period).
Industry:Technology
A technique used to track faults in networks, such as cable breaks or loose connections. A pulse of a known shape is transmitted over the network and an echo is created when the pulse hits an obstacle or cable end. The time elapsed between the sending of the pulse and receiving the echo can be used to locate the origin of the echo and therefore the break. Sophisticated testing equipment is available to perform this test and to analyze the results.
Industry:Technology
Time division multiplexing (TDM) is a data, voice and video communications technique that interleaves several low-speed signals into one high-speed transmission channel.
Industry:Technology
Digital modulation technique that allocates a discrete amount of frequency bandwidth to each user to permit many simultaneous conversations. Each caller is assigned a specific time slot for transmission. TDMA provides improved spectral efficiencies over analog systems. A derivative of this standard used in North America is called NA-TDMA. Other TDMA-based cellular systems include GSM, D-AMPS, PDC, DECT and enhanced TDMA.
Industry:Technology
Through-silicon vias (TSVs) involve the stacking of individual wafers (or individual dies) to form customized, multilayer, multifunctional devices. They are bonded together in the vertical direction using metalized holes or pillars as the primary interconnect method. Various types of wafers — such as radio frequency (RF), analog, digital and memory — can be bonded together using chemical and physical processes.
Industry:Technology
