The general Triple Play architecture (Figure below) usually consists of the following parts [4]:
- Service platform domain including IPTV middleware (non-NGN)
- Transport network
- Access network
- Home network and CPEs

General IPTV architecture
The Triple Play service platform usually contains several less independent parts of complex service architecture:
- Content acquisition subsystem which allows to receive, process, and encode content from external sources to defined media coding and encapsulation (receiver and decoders infrastructure, IPTV headend, VoD import and pre-processing).
- Content distribution subsystem responsible for retrieving, protecting, distributing, storing and delivering of the content by preferred way to the end user’s system (user equipment).
- IPTV middleware contains the application servers which control and manage the whole IPTV infrastructure (servers, databases, frontend, backend systems, interfaces to external systems e.g. OSS/BSS), users and services. Part of the application platform could also be additional IPTV applications or gateways allowing limited interaction with other systems (e.g. VoIP, NGN).
- Service selection and discovery subsystem which allow the user to browse and find via user TV portal an appropriate content or service information (metadata) which he would like to watch (could be part of IPTV middleware).
- VoD, nPVR or other subsystems – specialized subsystem infrastructure required for dedicated services (Video on Demand or network based personal video recording service).
For the Triple Play contains tree type of services – video, voice, data – the connection to internet services and voice service platform is required (e.g. over VoIP gateway).
There is no single approach to the IPTV service provisioning. Due to huge costs involved in the network equipment, operators usually follow incremental approaches to network upgrading, always relying on existing premises and procedures. Therefore the way a new NGN service is provisioned, it clearly depends on the history of the operator. Therefore there are a lot of differences from solution to solution and also to operator specific transport, access and home network design.