After SK Telecom announced that it is buying CJ HelloVision, IoT business that was being done by cable TV industries has been stopped.
While IPTV already had showed IoT service starting from middle of 2015, cable TV industries haven’t even discussed about IoT service for 2 months.
According to cable industries on the 22nd, 5 multiple system operators (MSO) and individual SOs have stopped discussing about public IoT service ‘Cable Home IoT (tentative name)’ after CJ HelloVision was bought out. Cable TV industries were planning to strengthen competitiveness of cable TV products by introducing Home IoT service.
Their strategies were to catch telecommunication businesses that already released IoT services. Cable industries were planning to introduce IoT products in security, automation, energy and health based on public platform and prevent customers from leaving with variety of combined products such as broadcasting, internet, IoT and others.
In middle of October, cable TV industries decided to make platform together since it is more cost-efficient than working individually. Cable industries chose oneM2M as the standard for public IoT platform, and currently SKT and LG Uplus are using oneM2M. K-labs had been designated with certification of IoT devices.
However all discussions were stopped after SKT announced that it is buying CJ HelloVision because it has become unclear whether or not SKT will continuously participate in cable TV business since CJ HelloVision is planning to be merged with its competitor IPTV SK Broadband. “Although they had decided to manage IoT platform together and already selected standards, everything has come to a halt after announcement of a merger.” said CTO of broadcast industry.
It is unclear when cable TV industries will start discussing about IoT service again. Although few are estimating that it will be April when the whole process of merger is finished, there are possibilities that SKT will not make another investment since it is doing IoT business already. “Even if merger takes place in April, there is a low chance that CJ HelloVision will work with cable TV businesses in IoT service since SKT is already doing IoT business.” said a person from broadcast industry.
South Korea’s 3 mobile telecommunication businesses are already choosing IoT business as a new driving force to break through current telecommunication markets. SKT first released IoT products such as door lock, dehumidifier, boiler and others in June. LG Uplus has started service in July with switch plug, door lock and others. KT is planning to invest $11.1 billion (13 trillion KRW) by 2020 in ICT converged areas such as Smart Energy, healthcare and others.
Staff Reporter Chun, Jiyeon | [email protected]