As Internet protocol television (IPTV) moves out of the technology lab, a number of global communications companies have become actively involved in commercial launch efforts. The urgency of these efforts is mounting as market share losses to cable telephony and VoIP providers escalate. Despite this urgency, successful IPTV deployments remain elusive.

As the network technologies and related integration techniques improve, leading communications companies increasingly focus on the operational aspects of IPTV services as key factors in an effective commercial launch. The challenge is to meet entrenched consumer expectations of system reliability and customer service while containing IPTV-related operating expenses.

• Consumer expectations—IPTV consumers are intolerant of service glitches; services must be launched with consumer-friendly operations that consistently deliver the desired level of service to the customer.
• Extensive operational changes—IPTV deployment requires pervasive changes to the tools, structures, staffing, training, measurement, and reward systems used to manage telephony and high-speed Internet (HSI) services.
• Risk of "trial and error" approaches—Developing IPTV operations from a blank slate can incur unacceptable delays, risks, and costs through trial-and-error testing and iteration. These methods usually fall short of required operational performance, severely limiting scalability, delaying commercial launch, and creating excessive operating expenses and brand risk for the service provider.
• Technology factors mask operational issues—IPTV operational challenges are often entwined with—and masked by—better-known networking challenges. Many service providers experience unexpected difficulties with service provisioning, consumer complaints about service quality and reliability, and overwhelming help desk and repair costs.

The affected processes include the following:

• Service provisioning (order to installation)
• Service assurance (preventive and corrective)
• Network assurance and network change management
• Video head-end management and content management

The service provisioning process must manage the following interdependent streams of activity:

• Change-out of telephony feature set and pricing
• Loop rearrangements and conditioning
• Removal and rebuilding of broadband service and provisioning
• Activation and installation of home network and IPTV applications

Further, this must be accomplished without unacceptable disruption to the consumer's telephony or broadband service.

The end-to-end process may also span several business units whose procedures must be adapted to accommodate IPTV and triple-play operations. These assets are usually not integrated into a reliable end-to-end IPTV service provisioning process. With limited visibility of the end-to-end process, process failure is often not detected until downstream activities are visibly impacted.

In the absence of effective operational practices, order fallout rates can exceed 50 percent; up to 30 percent of installations may require a second truck roll to complete the installation. Even when the installation appears to be completed, the service provider may receive additional help desk calls within 30 days of the installation.

To minimize the provisioning challenges of deploying IPTV, service providers need a strategy that encompasses methodologies, templates, and tools specifically tailored to the needs of IPTV services.

This strategy integrates several key elements, including the following:

• Clear understanding of requirements—IPTV service providers need a clear definition of the operational targets for IPTV in order to organize and execute development activities toward those targets.
• Well-defined processes—IPTV service provisioning process flows, error checks, and related process measures should be assembled into a centralized workflow-management tool.
• Trial and test frameworks—Once processes are developed, coordinated testing of the operational process will enable the operator to assess readiness for market trial and launch.

In addition to the common issues involved in network convergence, there are five areas, as follows, in IPTV service fulfillment that are critical to a successful IPTV deployment:

• Service provisioning and verification—Creation of detailed process modeling to enable the effective management of key IPTV processes, including the following:
  • Successful collection of all required customer information
  • Order creation, configuration, and provisioning of the customer IPTV service
  • Customer site survey, service verification, and troubleshooting techniques
• Customer trouble resolution—Management of the collection of detailed trouble information for the sectionalization and disposition of all customer trouble ticket preparation, to do the following:
  • Reduce call holding time
  • Decrease trouble ticket resolution times
  • Reduce repeat dispatch of technicians
  • Reduce repeat customer trouble calls
• Content management—Managing content for IPTV services, including the following:
  • Reconciliation and integration of IPTV video service billings and content charges from content providers
  • Video monitoring to ensure billable content availability
  • Managing content provider contracts
  • Many other functions new to communications providers
• Head-end management—Encompassing the design and management of IPTV processes, including the following:
  • Channel lineup correlation and frequent additions/changes
  • Simultaneous substitution
  • Closed-captioning
  • Daylight savings time change
• Change management—Enabling IPTV-specific functionality to manage changes in the following:
  • Underlying infrastructure (e.g., video middleware, DSLAMS to IPTV DSLAMS, modems, gateways, central office wiring, head-end components, servers and databases)
  • Video and audio content (channel changes, program reception, and encoder configurations)
  • Web content, upgrades, and much more

A strategic, planned approach to IPTV deployment can enable IPTV service providers to implement efficient IPTV service provisioning while reducing the risks, costs, and delays of developing "from scratch."

In addition, a strategic process provides a foundation for further operations design and optimization, further reducing design cost and time. This helps ensure the key IPTV provisioning requirements are captured and increases the success rate on installations.

This strategy also helps create a consumer-friendly IPTV service provisioning process that can be tuned and augmented as volumes grow without throw-away investment. Using a repeatable, controlled process improves order completion, reduces order fallout and rework, and generates positive customer experiences. Start-up costs are contained, and scalability enhancements can be phased in as needed over time.