Key results of the study show:

• 84% reported video quality monitoring as critical or a very important part of their video initiative
• Over 90% of respondents were notified about service quality problems from subscriber calls
• 77% say video quality is a main reason for customer churn
• Top three issues are video freeze, macroblocking and video blackout
• Over 72% of all problems come from access and home networks
• 77% of existing video quality monitoring solutions are not an accurate measure of end-user quality and 78% are not end-to-end
• Less than half of respondents conduct deep packet inspection (MPEG), P and B frames, and groups of pictures

President and Principal Analyst of MRG Gary Schultz commented on the study ’s findings, “Service providers understand the importance of video quality to their bottom line, yet feel they do not currently have the right solution for monitoring and managing video quality from the content ingest point at the headend to the customer premises equipment (CPE) in the home. This Symmetricom study strongly suggests that video quality is top-of-mind with IPTV service providers and a main driver for telco customer churn. ”

“Service providers need a true end-to-end solution for monitoring IPTV services to deliver a high quality video experience to their customers, ” added David Cox, Symmetricom ’s EVP GM of the Quality of Experience (QoE) Assurance Division. “The demand for high-definition TV programming is exploding, raising the video quality bar by consumers as they become dissatisfied with anything less than an HD experience. Service providers need to implement a comprehensive perceptual video quality monitoring solution that can ensure they meet their customers ’ expectations, or risk losing some customers. ”

Survey Methodology

In December 2007, Symmetricom commissioned MRG to survey IPTV executives (VP, Director, Manager-level) from 12 Tier One (very large or regional incumbents) and Tier Two (mid-size, non incumbents) telecommunications service providers in North America. The study was conducted using a written survey questionnaire, along with telephone calls if clarification was necessary.

The first half of the questionnaire focused on recognition of quality issues, the use of video quality monitoring, and the origin of any video quality issues. The second half of the questionnaire related to analysis of video content, video delivery and test infrastructure, customer satisfaction and budgeting for video test, measurement and monitoring solutions. To view a full summary of the report, visit http://qoe.symmetricom.com/lp/IPTV _Study1/.