Internet Protocol television
system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite
Internet Protocol television (IPTV), also called TV over broadband, is the service delivery of television over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Usually sold and run by a telecom provider, it consists of broadcast live television that is streamed over the Internet (multicast) — in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable transmission formats — as well as video on demand services for watching or replaying content (unicast).
IPTV broadcasts started gaining usage during the 2000s alongside the rising use of broadband-based internet connections. It is often provided bundled with internet access services by Internet service providers (ISPs) to subscribers and runs in a closed network. IPTV normally requires the use of a set-top box, which receives the encoded television content in the MPEG transport stream via IP multicast, and converts the packets to be watched on a TV set or other kind of display. It is distinct from over-the-top (OTT) services, which are based on a direct one-to-one transmission mechanism.
IPTV methods have been standardised by organisations such as ETSI. IPTV has found success in some regions: for example in Western Europe in 2015, pay IPTV users overtook pay satellite TV users. IPTV is also used for media delivery around corporate and private networks.
Definition
Historically, many different definitions of IPTV have appeared, including elementary streams over IP networks, MPEG transport streams over IP networks and a number of proprietary systems. One official definition approved by the International Telecommunication Union focus group on IPTV (ITU-T FG IPTV) is:
IPTV is defined as multimedia services such as television/video/audio/text/graphics/data delivered over IP-based networks managed to provide the required level of quality of service and experience, security, interactivity and reliability.
The public source identifies “Internet Protocol television” as system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Internet, Protocol and television.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q177518. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “Internet Protocol television” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.