When it comes to IPTV services, the United States is a little behind others in rollouts. While that might change after SBC and Verizon push forward their experiments after this year, here is a glimpse of how broadband and IPTV services intermix with each other.

A broadband package has been launched in hong kong, offering voice, video and data services over a Gigabit fibre-optic connection to the home. Hong Kong Broadband Network, a subsidiary of City Telecom in Hong Kong, is now offering a 1Gbps service for the residential market. The fibre-to-the-home service will initially be available to 800,000 households.

Prices and speeds are tiered with the top tier costing $215 per month for unlimited gigabit access. Although that is a bit pricey for the US market, it is not unreasonable if you are working from home and using the network for multiple purposes.

The entire route from the network center to the home is connected by optical fibre. In other cases, fibre-to-the-building provides access over conventional network cable in the customer premises.

HKBN has been developing its fibre network and now covers a million households in Hong Kong, with over half a million subscribers to voice, broadband and IPTV services.

Enormous bandwidth provides an indication of the potential for converged communication services over IP, including IPTV. While most broadband services offer slower speeds, there is no reason to assume that with next generation that Gigabit network speeds will not be available in the future.