Economy

Construction of IPTV platform going 'smoothly'

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-02-28 15:27

BEIJING - The project to build a national Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) platform is going "smoothly," said a senior Chinese official here Monday.

Building a broadcast and control platform in  IPTV services is to integrate the Internet, TV and telecom networks, said Zhang Haitao, deputy chief of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), at a press conference held in Beijing.

The planned IPTV broadcast and control platform will not only carry TV broadcasts but also Internet, data transmission and IP phone-call services via cable networks.

The platform is divided into two tiers, namely, the central level, which will provide programs and services catering to all audiences throughout the country, and the local level, which will be designed for audiences in specific regions.

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All 12 pilot cities, chosen by the SARFT to build local IPTV platforms, had finished the construction and linked their platforms to the central-level platform late last year, Zhang said.

Traditional cable TV networks must be digitalized in order to operate IPTV services.

The country has speed up updating cable TV networks over the past five years, Zhang said.

About 50 million households in China have access to the interactive digital cable TV services and people in 308 cities have access to digital TV programs, he said.