Watch Telephony's Security Webcast Find out what Verizon Business is doing with managed network security and how service providers can cash in with this new service. Watch Telephony's Webcast today.

CHICAGO--At the ChinaTel Forum at Supercomm today, vendors said the potential for IPTV services in China and the rest of East Asia could rival that of the rest of the world.

Asian carriers in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan have already launched IPTV and interactive video services, shipping not just TV programming but features like Karaoke on demand. But the real potential lies in mainland China proper where trials are already being conducted by China Netcomm and the Shanghai Media Group, said Estelle Chen, regional director of marketing for Alcatel’s Asia Pacific Region.

A number of geographical, economic and technological factors make China a prime candidate for the widespread adoption of IPTV services, not the least of which is the disparity between the number of TVs and the number of PCs in China, Chen said. While the market for broadband Internet might have a lower ceiling in China, the potential for IP video feeding directly into the home is very high, she said. Chinese communications officials have already pledged to have 1 million IPTV subscribers in China by the end of 2005, and Chinese providers like China Netcomm are working to reach that goal. Despite that number far exceeding the number of planned IPTV deployments in the U.S., Chen said it was just the beginning.

“2005 will not be the year for IPTV in China--it will be a year of testing and planning,” she said. Beyond that, however, the country will witness massive deployments.

UTStarcom Chief Technology Officer Bill Huang said there are 450 million televisions, and due to the layout of most Chinese cities, carriers can deliver about 8 Mb/s--enough for multiple video channels--over copper loops without resorting to fiber overlays.

“Urban density is very high,” he said. “Loop lengths are very short.”