When Did IPTV Start? The History of Internet Television

When IPTV started: the short version

IPTV started as a research idea in the early 1990s, became a named product in the mid-1990s and reached UK homes as a commercial service around the turn of the millennium. There was no single launch day. Instead, internet television developed in stages, as networks became fast enough and cheap enough to carry video that people would actually want to watch.

This article traces those stages, from academic experiments to the broadband-delivered live channels many UK households use today. For an explanation of the technology itself, see how IPTV works.

Timeline of internet television

The research era: the MBone in the early 1990s

The story begins with the MBone, short for Multicast Backbone, an experimental network used largely by the research community in the early 1990s. Its purpose was to test multicast: a way of sending one stream of data that the network copies to many recipients, rather than sending a separate copy to each person.

Multicast matters for television because it mirrors how broadcasting works. A transmitter sends one signal and any number of aerials can pick it up. The MBone showed that something similar could be done over IP networks, with live audio and video shared with remote participants. The picture quality was modest and the audience small, but the principle had been proven.

Ordinary homes were nowhere near ready, however. Most people who were online at all used dial-up modems that could barely handle a still image quickly, let alone moving pictures.

IPTV gets its name: Precept and Cisco

In 1995, a company called Precept Software released a product named IP/TV. It was designed to deliver video across computer networks, and it is one of the earliest commercial uses of the name that later became the generic term for the whole technology.

In 1998, Cisco, a major maker of networking equipment, acquired Precept. The acquisition reflected a growing belief in the networking industry that video would become one of the main things IP networks carried. At the time that was a forecast, not a reality, but it pointed the way.

A UK first: Kingston Interactive Television in Hull

Hull has a notable place in British television history. Around 1999-2000, Kingston Communications launched an IP-based television service delivered over ADSL, an early form of broadband that runs over ordinary telephone lines. The service was known as KIT (Kingston Interactive Television).

KIT is widely regarded as one of the earliest IPTV services in the UK. It showed that television could be sent into homes over a broadband phone line, years before most households had broadband at all. Services of this early kind were delivered over the operator's own network rather than across the open internet, because the public internet of the time was not up to carrying TV reliably.

Broadband spreads and TV follows

In the years that followed, broadband gradually replaced dial-up in UK homes and connection speeds rose. That shift made television over IP practical on a national scale. Two developments stand out.

BT Vision (2006)

BT Vision launched in 2006, bringing broadband-connected television from one of the UK's best-known telecoms names to a national audience. For many people, services like this were their first experience of choosing a programme to watch over broadband on their main TV rather than a computer. Today BT TV and EE TV continue to offer broadband-connected TV.

BBC iPlayer (December 2007)

The biggest shift in public habits came when BBC iPlayer launched its streaming service in December 2007. Catch-up television in a web browser was suddenly easy: no special box, no extra subscription, just a broadband connection. iPlayer helped make the idea of watching TV over the internet feel normal to a broad UK audience, and today it offers live channels as well as on-demand programmes.

Today other UK broadcasters offer their own apps, such as ITVX, the Channel 4 app and My5, alongside subscription on-demand services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. All of these are forms of internet-delivered television, even if few people call them IPTV.

Hybrid boxes: YouView in 2012

As more households came to have both an aerial and a broadband connection, there was a clear appeal in combining the two. YouView launched in 2012 with that hybrid approach, bringing together Freeview channels received through the aerial with broadband-delivered catch-up on one box and one guide.

This hybrid model was significant because it treated broadcast and IP delivery as partners rather than rivals: live channels could come from the aerial while missed programmes came over broadband, all presented in one place.

Live channels without an aerial: Freely in 2024

The most recent milestone in this history is Freely, which launched in 2024. Freely offers live UK channels over broadband on compatible TVs, so viewers can watch live television without relying on an aerial or dish. In many ways it completes a journey that started with the MBone: live TV, delivered over IP networks, to ordinary homes.

Remember that whichever way live TV reaches you, aerial, satellite or broadband, you need a TV Licence to watch or record it in the UK, and to use BBC iPlayer.

What history tells us about IPTV today

Looking back across three decades, a few lessons stand out for anyone choosing a service now:

• The network has always been the limit. IPTV only became practical when broadband could carry it, and your own connection is still the main factor in picture quality. See our IPTV internet speed guide.
• Managed and open delivery coexist. Operator-run networks and OTT streaming have each had their place, and they offer different trade-offs between control and flexibility.
• Licensed content drives the mainstream. The services that reached a mass UK audience were run by, or in partnership with, rights holders and broadcasters. Checking content rights remains essential; our article on IPTV and UK law explains why.
• Hybrid is normal. Most homes now mix broadcast, catch-up, on-demand and live streaming. Our comparison of IPTV vs traditional TV looks at where each still makes sense.

For more on what to look for in a modern service, browse the rest of our blog.