Verizon in the US has followed its AT&T rival with an iPad application that allows its FiOS TV programming to be seen on an iPad. The idea is that it is streamed in the home from the set top, and so the TV programs cannot be taken on the road. Of course it gets rid of the need for a TV in each bedroom, and lets one person keep an eye on a second channel while in the living room.
The app is called ‘What’s Hot’ and it takes the most popular programs and allows them to be streamed. Why it’s not an all-singing, all dancing app that just makes the local iPad another TV in the home, we can only guess at.
Just like AT&T’s iPhone offering this is not aimed at the general public, but more at cementing its hybrid fiber/IPTV pay television offering ‘ it’s another perk for those who can afford FiOS (instead of cable or satellite), to keep them loyal.
Given that we know that Verizon is coming out with its own tablet, and that this will be made by Motorola and run Android, this looks like a ‘dry run’ or a test, just to see how the public takes to its offering. The Motorola tablet may well have better features, in order to push people towards its own wireless service. Verizon also may bring to market the Blackberry Blackpad tablet when it comes out, since Verizon is the biggest outlet for Blackberries in the US.
The AT&T application launched last week is quite different, although the two set out to achieve the same thing. It was a download to view service, so the journey of the content is from the same server that goes to the home, but one which goes through any broadband line to your iPhone (specifically not the iPad). This Verizon app takes its content from TV services that have already come to your home and come out of your set top. The difference is that AT&T, because it is a pure IPTV service, can re-purpose IP encapsulated content to multiple destinations quite easily. For Verizon its FiOS service only puts the TV in IP packets for its VoD files, not its broadcast service. Which is probably why it has simply offered a file of favorites, these have to be put into internet format anyway for catch up TV.
The AT&T app also gives the ability to program your DVR remotely, which of course is of less benefit on a tablet device which may never leave the home.
What is really needed is a hybrid between the two services. A stream that can be sent to your tablet from your set top, but stored for later viewing. Hollywood studios are very wary of such things. Once you take the content away from being online, there are less easy ways to protect it and pirates can hack away at its encryption without fear of being spotted. A protected stream can be made to evaporate (not allowed to be stored) as soon as it is played.
But it can be done, and it looks to us like Verizon is the more likely company to manage it. Once content has gone through your set top it can be ‘marked’ with a watermark which would tell anyone who finds it on the internet, which set top it came from, so the studios might allow that to come later. It can be done online as well, but is more complicated to set up.
Neither Verizon, which doesn’t sell the iPhone or iPad, nor AT&T, which has exclusivity on it, cares much to artificially attract the general iPhone/iPad customer. AT&T already has them and Verizon can’t have them ‘ otherwise they would be offering the TV service, for money, to a wider audience. However that may well come later in some format, perhaps one such service to entice homes over to their TV services.
One issue will be that in the Verizon homes, non IP services require a tuner ‘ in other words its takes up one of the tuners in the set top boxes, and these vary from we think two tuners to about 6 or more in each box. In a two tuner home that might stop other TVs in the home watching a program. Again this is why we think this is really a VoD service really, which comes over the IP portion of their fiber service. The service is not out yet, as Verizon is still getting content agreements in place to launch it, but the application is complete, the company confirms.
Expect a streaming Hulu app next, which has been widely leaked as well as similar services from the cable TV operators