Indian telcos should learn from their Korean counterparts. Despite regulatory drawbacks, operators in Korea are rolling out IPTV services. The country has close to one million subscribers of IPTB services.

Last week, South Korean operator LG Dacom became third operator to launch an IPTV service, following its two larger rivals KT and Hanarotelecom. The main selling point of "myLGtv" is that LG Dacom claims it is up to 15 per cent cheaper than rival offerings.

myLGtv is available as part of a triple play of IPTV, broadband access and voice service and will be offered by its broadband subsidiary LG Powercom, which is expected to be merged with the parent company some time next year. 

LG Dacom also claims that its service provides more high-definition content than its rivals. According to a report in The Korea Times, the IPTV service initially offers 3000 programmes, which will be expanded to more than 20,000 in 2008. 

IPTV has had a fractured start in South Korea due to regulatory constraints that prevent operators from showing local programmes in real-time. KT started trialling its service three years ago, although its Mega TV service has since been overtaken by Hanarotelecom, which offers "Hana TV". The regulatory impasse is between the Ministry of Communications, which favours lifting the real-time ban, and the Korea Broadcasting Commission, which sides with traditional broadcasters. However, a bill that would allow for full IPTV services went through parliament in November, although it is yet to take effect.

Hana TV currently boasts 660,000 subscribers and was one of the first IPTV operators in the world to pass the 500,000 sub mark in one year, according to CEO Park Byung-moo in a press conference in August. He expects that Hana TV will surpass PCCW''s Now as the leading IPTV operator in Asia soon.

Dominant carrier KT has only an estimated 230,000 subscribers to its service, despite being the major broadband operator in the country. 

Meanwhile another of the region's IPTV operators, Singtel's mio TV, announced that it has signed up local Singaporean as well Chinese-language content exclusively for its service.

Starting this month subscribers will be able to view the TV premiere of Jack Neo's recent box office hit "Just Follow Law," which was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Visual Effects at Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards 2007. 

mio TV will also start airing special TV content that includes Chinese language variety shows such as "Comedy 2000," "Jack Neo Talkshow" and "Ah Nan Ge Tai Show" produced by Jack Neo. "Ah Nan Ge Tai Show" will premiere exclusively on mio TV and will be shown in its original dialect – Hokkien and Mandarin. There are also plans to showcase 30 to 40 locally-produced short films such as "Big Exit" and "Seletar Airbase" from budding directors Helmi Yusof and Esther Liu

Xiu Qi.

"With mio TV's Video on Demand, we are looking forward to exclusively premiere more of our new programmes with SingTel," said Philip Wu, director, Neo Studios, in a statement.