New analysis from Frost & Sullivan World IP Video Test & Measurement Market reveals that this market earned revenues of US $52.2 million in 2005 and is likely to reach US $289 million in 2010.

There is a rising trend among test equipment and solution vendors to offer IPTV test capability 'within the same box'. In order to meet the intense competition from cable TV providers and the increasing shift of customers to VoIP-based telephony and wireless networks, telecom companies are increasingly launching VoIP and offering bundled video, data and voice services.

"With such intense competition among service providers, subscriber experience and quality of service become key differentiators, compelling them to roll-out monitoring systems and protocol analyzers at the same time as they launch their IPTV services," remarks Frost & Sullivan industry manager Jessy Cavazos. "This factor is considered to be a strong driver, particularly for the network monitoring systems market segment, and is expected to have a very high impact on market revenues throughout the forecast period."

The challenge for test equipment providers is to keep pace with the latest technologies in IP video and TV and to be able to develop suitable solutions to test them.

"With end users looking at channel change time issues before roll-out and measuring channel change infrastructure in networks after deployment, this presents a significant opportunity for test vendors," says Cavazos.