TVIP, also known as IPTV, is short for Television over Internet Protocol. Television channels, whether delivered by satellite dish or over cable wires, demand a lot of capacity. Local cable operators and satellite providers have shrunk the capacity channels need by encoding some of into digital channels. That's why satellite and digital cable subscribers need a special box or a special TV set. The television channels are delivered like Web pages over the Internet. This allows the consumer to select only the channels they wanted from potentially infinite possibilities. While a niche channel might not be popular in one area to land a limited slot on a cable system, it might survive if anyone in the world could select it. That is why consumers should have choice over the channels that they want.
Telephone companies want to offer video services like television, in conjunction with telephone service, over new high-speed fiber optic wires using TVIP. But they don't want competiton among several providers over those lines like they currently face for telephone service.
