Ups and downs of Russian IPTV

CSTB 2008, Moscow: Less than 25% of homes in Moscow receive digital TV and awareness of services is low, according to Andrei Guryanov, head of IP Technologies Department, Tel Co Group. It is even lower of IPTV, despite a large amount of money being poured into the development and launch of new services. An operation named Avantguard-TV in St Petersburg, for instance, which only made its debut in December 2007 is eventually expected to invest up to $350 million on a service that aims to have 10,000 subscribers by the end of this year. Guryanov identified the problems faced by Russia’s embryonic IPTV market – in descending order – as content, technical difficulties and lengthy period of breakeven.