Triple play
Triple Play or 3-play ( English for Triple Play ) is in telecommunications since about 2005, a marketing term for the bundled offering of the three services audiovisual entertainment ( television , video-on-demand ), ( IP ) telephony and Internet (see also convergence ). Does the offer also mobile offers, it is also called quadruple play or four-play (Engl. For quadruple play , shortening and quad play called).
For the competition in the telecommunications market, the emerging Triple Play has initially the advantage that the fact several competing network infrastructures to the participants establish, as the classic telephone companies to its network for IPTV expand and video on demand, while the TV cable operators their networks for cable Internet and Equip cable telephony .
With 2-play , audiovisual entertainment ( television ) is dispensed with.
Terminology
- The term triple play originally comes from baseball and describes a perfect defensive move that combines three moves in one. For this reason, it was also adopted by the telecommunications industry.
- In general, the term also describes electronic components that (can) process audio, video and data at the same time. Triple play in the original sense describes the transport of voice, data and video (triple) over a network. Even referred to as quadruple play, i.e. the additional mobile radio offer to the existing television, Internet and telephone offer from a single source (quad = four), only data, voice or video content is distributed or offered. This is still triple play, because the content remains the same, only the electronic components vary.
- In Austria, Triple Play is a brand name registered by UPC .
history
Cable television providers have been expanding their networks for this combination since the 1990s (in Germany, however, due to the previous ownership structure of the cable networks, for the most part only for a few years) and offer corresponding cable modems , whereby the television offer is usually pure classic radio and not on demand ( Video-on-demand) works. With the availability of broadband IP-based access ( ADSL , VDSL , fiber optics ), which must also be reliable and low-delay, as well as powerful data reduction processes (e.g. MPEG-4 AVC ), telecommunications providers are also entering the market. Cell phone companies often unsystematically call their UMTS- based services Quad Play .
The German Telekom rose in November 2006 in the triple play market and introduced in November 2013, the first provider in Germany, the quad play offer one.
In view of the technology convergence and the migration of the classic circuit-switched telephone network to an NGN ( Voice over Cable ) infrastructure , all services of triple play offers will be based on a uniform network infrastructure in the future.
criticism
Despite the advantages of triple play for the customer, such as billing and customer service from a single source, critics are already warning against bundling all communication services on one (IP-based) network, since a malfunction or total failure also means a simultaneous failure of all communication channels (e.g. due to natural disasters, terrorism, technical defects, etc.) In addition, the telephone tariffs differ considerably. When using free VoIP providers , depending on the provider and tariff, there are sometimes significantly lower minute prices available (also for mobile phone calls and abroad), so that the usual flat rates are only worthwhile with certain usage patterns.
With reference to their high investment costs for network expansion and the emerging infrastructure competition between their networks, the triple play providers are trying to get rid of market regulation and its requirements such as unbundling , universal service and network neutrality in order to become a monopoly - or oligopoly - Content providers to achieve additional added value. Deutsche Telekom in Germany (Telekom's VDSL regulatory holidays ) and Swisscom in Switzerland have already had success with this idea .
literature
- PRAXIS PROFILINE special issue: Triple Play - The future of multimedia communication [1]
- Damir Penava: Triple Play - Convergence of communication networks (technologies, providers, markets)
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Telekom starts with the first Quad Play offers ( Memento from December 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive )