The television experience is constantly changing and evolving with the increasing number of devices and platforms available to watch video content. This year two of the tech giants, Apple and Google, have seriously entered the market to make the web accessible through your television screen. However, both have very different strategies as the battle over openness and control will play out through your television sets in 2011.

How IPTV has changed in 2010

IPTV is no longer tied to commercial bundles of high speed internet access, television and telephone (triple play), but the success of the technology continues to be dependent upon the strength of the home broadband connection.

The uptake of triple play offerings in the UK is somewhat sluggish compared with the US and other EU markets. However, along with the two established players, Sky (satellite) and Virgin (cable), the adoption of high speed broadband internet connection over recent years has led to the rise of various forms of bundled and unbundled internet protocol television (IPTV) services.

For the purpose of this article, IPTV as a term includes subscriber-based offerings requiring the installation of set-top boxes (eg BT Vision, TalkTalk TV, etc.), but also free or commercial services that offer some sort of live television, time-shifted TV programmes, and video on demand (eg BBC i-Player, ITV Player, Channel 4 on demand (4oD), YouTube, LOVEFILM etc.) relying on other customer-premises equipment (CPE).