Gourt Home::Gourt :: Triple play (telecommunications)
In telecommunications, the Triple Play service is a marketing term for the provisioning of the three services; high-speed Internet, television (Video on Demand or regular broadcasts) and telephone service over a single broadband connection. Triple Play focuses on a combined business model rather than on solving technical issues or a common standard.
Today, Triple Play services are offered by cable television operators as well as by telecommunication operators. It paves the way for these service providers to compete with one another. It relies on the assumption that an integrated solution will increase opportunity costs for customers who may want to choose between service providers. Interoperability is not a design target.
For telephone local exchange carriers (LEC), Triple Play is delivered using a combination of optical fiber and digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies (called fiber in the loop) to its residential base. This configuration uses fiber communications to reach distant locations and uses DSL over an existing POTS twisted pair cable as last mile access to the subscriber's home. Cable television operators use a similar architecture called hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) to provide subscriber homes with broadband, but use the available coaxial cable rather than a twisted pair for the last mile transmission standard. Subscriber homes can be in a residential environment, multi-dwelling units, or even in business offices.
Using DSL over twisted pair, television content is delivered using IPTV where the content is streamed to the subscriber in an MPEG-2 transport format. On an HFC network, television may be a mixture of analog and digital television signals. A Set-Top-Box (STB) is used at the subscriber's home to allow the susbcriber to control viewing and order new video services such as movies on demand. Internet is delivered via ATM or DOCSIS, typically provided as a 10BASE-T Ethernet port to the subscriber. Voice can be delivered using a traditional Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) interface as part of the legacy telephone network or can be delivered using Voice over IP (VoIP). In a HFC network, voice is delivered using VoIP.
Some service providers are also rolling out Ethernet to the home networks and fiber to the home, which support Triple Play services and bypass the disadvantages of adapting broadband transmission to a legacy network. This is particularly common in green field developments where the CAPEX is reduced by deploying one network to deliver all services.
Triple Play has led to the term "Quadruple play" (or 4play) where wireless communications is introduced as another media to deliver video, Internet and voice content. Advances in both CDMA and GSM standards, utilizing 3G, 4G or UMTS allows the service operators to enter into Quadruple Play and gain competitive advantage against other providers. The grouping together of services (as triple or quadruple play) is called multi-play.
The challenges in offering Triple Play are mostly associated with determining the right business model, backend processes, customer care support and economic environment rather than technology. For example, using the right billing platform to address a variety of subscriber demographics or having the appropriate subscriber density to financially justify introduction of the service are a few factors that affect decisions to offer Triple Play service.
In addition to the challenges mentioned above, there are a number of technical challenges with regards to the rollout of Triple Play services. Voice, video and high speed data all have different characteristics and place different burdens on the network that provides access to these services. Voice Services are greatly affected by jitter, whereas packet loss or packet reordering has a greater affect on Video and Data services. Using a shared network resource such as cable or DSL requires that the network equipment used employs Quality of Service mechanisms.
See also
External links
Telecommunications | Telephony | Digital television | VoIP Concepts
"Triple play (telecommunications)"