Ontario universities partner with ORION to launch IPTV channel

Several Ontario universities and colleges are joining forces to launch a common IPTV channel over ORION, Ontario's ultra high-speed optical network, which will showcase the best of student-generated content.Dubbed ORION-TV, the new IPTV channel would be delivered over a shared digital platform linking all participating Ontario institutions. Similar student IPTV channels are springing up on campuses across North America, Europe and Asia, with delivery over research network backbones.Last week, representatives from the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and several others participated in a workshop hosted at Sheridan College by ORION to sort out details of the new channel."This will be a learning playground," said Sandy McKean, associate dean at Sheridan. The opportunities for real, hands-on training for students in developing new media are legion: creating newscasts and other programming, developing advanced collaborative IP networks, and working with ad agencies and technology companies to create targeted advertising and corporate communications plans."Who knows where this can go. Google, Facebook, Yahoo: these all started as student projects," said Sean Van Koughnett, director of new media at the University of Waterloo. Quality content is a central issue in creating a channel that students will want to view, said McKean. "Students want more than YouTube on steroids." ORION-TV will provide an outlet not found in the mainstream media for creative student content that's currently hidden behind institutional walls. "This will provide one-stop shopping for the very best."Several other Ontario institutions are already collaborating with the Ohio-based Open Student Television Network (OSTN), which joins many American universities using the Internet2 research network as the backbone, said Ryerson professor Richard Grunberg. He noted the university also uses CANARIE, Canada's national research and education network, as the backbone to collaborate with the U.S., Europe and other countries on projects.Two main advantages to using dedicated research and education networks is bandwidth and the absence of commercial Internet traffic. The ORION and CANARIE networks are not-for-profit and can deliver gigabit speeds, far outstripping the limits of either cable or DSL.Ryerson launching RU-TVRyerson is also planning to launch its own IPTV channel, dubbed RU-TV, over the next year, using the ORION and OSTN networks to feed content in and out. Like most universities, Ryerson doesn't have enough content to fill a 24-hour IPTV channel, and plans to use OSTN content to fill gaps. "We could create a CNN of North America that bypasses mainstream media channels," said Grunberg, adding the combined potential audience is about 41 million student viewers.Educational institutions should look beyond their journalism and media departments for content, said Shane Walker, a Cleveland-based IPTV consultant who's launched three IPTV channels in the U.S. and U.K. and has worked with WIDE and CUDI, Japanese and Mexican student IPTV networks. Fine arts, engineering, and many other faculties may have performances, lectures or other content to offer. Nor does all the content need to be new, he added."You need to reach out to all 75 schools across Ontario, even if they don't think they're ready to contribute yet," he said. "Each will have something unique to offer."During a panel session, participants discussed the immediate challenges to tackle in launching ORION-TV. Branding internal versus externally-generated content was one issue. Establishing editorial guidelines and line-up editors who decide what to show was another. One audience member noted the sort of content that might be acceptable by the cinema department might not fly in the journalism department. "We just need to establish guiding principles - there's no need for censorship," said Grunberg.The next step is to set up a board of directors and get agreement on the goals, mandate and governance of the venture, said Phil Baker, ORION's CEO. "This could be up and running by the fall if we can get consensus," he said.Commercial forays into student IPTVThe university market for commercial and educational IPTV content is also being explored by new players such as London, UK-based Inuk Networks Ltd. and older stalwarts like TVOntario.Inuk currently offers free IPTV and VoIP services to more than 100,000 university students in Britain, and is running a technical trial at the University of Waterloo to deliver free TV over PCs to students.Several more technical trials are in the works at other universities in Ontario and Alberta, said Shaun Illingworth, Inuk's VP of business development. "We're trying to stretch our services by getting more universities on board, and we're also working at the network level with ORION, CANARIE, and Cybera (the provincial research network) in Alberta," he said.The company recently entered into agreements to deliver content on its service provided by TVO and the Advanced Broadband Enabled Learning (ABEL) program based out of York University. "ABEL has a vast library of educational video on demand assets. We're running technical programs now but it hasn't been deployed yet," said Illingworth.At present, Inuk offers a dozen channels in Canada, including A&E, Silver Screen Classics, the Fight Network and a few others that deliver entertainment content, not just educational fare. But the process of getting access to more channels offering mainstream content is difficult due to regulatory issues, said Illingworth.Delivery of commercial content over a public research network such as ORION is in any case an issue to be sorted out as it defines its new role in the emerging IPTV landscape.Students are already using the network to get entertainment," he said, pointing out the lines between commercial and educational content are blurring in the IPTV landscape. "Aren't Google and G-mail commercial services?"Universities are concerned about managing their network capacity, and he points out Inuk's multicasting technology, which provides a single, communal instance of content on ORION and other such networks, is vastly more efficient than the peer-to-peer technology that students use, legally or illegally, to obtain multiple, bandwidth-gobbling copies of the same content.At the University of Waterloo, one major goal of the trial was to get the multicasting technology to work on LANs, said Van Koughnett. "Upgrades were needed on the network to replace routers. We had some difficulties getting Cisco to talk to HP routers, but we did some workarounds with vendors."Students have responded positively to the first phase of the trial, but it's whetted their appetite for more content delivered via PCs, since only about 10% have televisions in their dorm rooms. "What we heard loud and clear is that they want a greater and better selection of content. Inuk only has rights to a dozen channels, but students don't want to watch some of them like CTS or Vision TV."In the first phase of Inuk's trial, 100 student technology gurus at the University of Waterloo's residences participated, Van Koughnett said. Inuk just released a new client which the IT department is testing. "If they're happy with it, we want to expand the trial to all our dons, which adds another 100 people. But we really have no plans beyond 2008."Most providers' IPTV offerings are still not ready for prime time, he added. "We're playing a waiting game with Inuk to see if they can get more permanent broadcast rights, and to see if other players come to forefront over the next year. The reality is they don't really have a product they can sell us yet. The challenge for us is there aren't many alternatives to look at."

Ontario universities partner with ORION to launch IPTV channel

News | 06/24/2008 7:23 pm EDT

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