Internet Television or Online TV is the next wave of how internet technology is becoming more and more ubiquitous. Internet Television is not Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). IPTV is a television service. Internet Television is television broadcasting through internet lines. A set-top digital decoder box is needed to access IPTV. Packet data needs to be converted into a format that the television understands. On, the other hand, Internet Television, can only be viewed on a personal computer.

To make things clearer; IPTV can be delivered using internet cables or telephone lines. It uses the protocol stack of computers, and goes by packet-switched network architecture. Here you can see television data is packet based. In Internet Television, this is not the case. Television signals are just broadcast over internet lines. A lot of times, IPTV is thought to be internet TV. But this is not fundamentally true. To see Internet Television, you need to install the software that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) gives you. Invariable, most internet television services are controlled by the internet service provider.

Unlike IPTV, where the broadcast rights or the streaming rights are negotiated between the internet service provider and the broadcaster, internet television will need the user to comply with copyright laws. Internet television is nearly always free. All the charges are only for the monthly rental plans of the internet usage. Nowadays, consumers have unlimited plans. Internet television watchers can watch anything they want up to a certain level of data usage. Crossing this data usage threshold attracts a charge per data-unit consumed. In IPTV, the fee is constant, with most being a monthly subscription rate.

Media companies have always distributed media broadcasts through IPTV. Internet TV was based on what internet users uploaded on to internet servers. Now the trend is changing with Internet TV switching over to broadcast programs that media companies do.

IPTV scores over Internet TV on the security front. While Internet TV is based on an open-to-public transmission mechanism, IPTV uses proprietary network lines. This feature of IPTV ensures good video quality and security of content.