Patent ID: 8793716

Claim:
An apparatus for controlling a channel for an Internet protocol television (IPTV) service, the apparatus comprising: a pattern information collection unit configured to collect data regarding a channel zapping pattern of a user for a cycle of a previously set period; a bandwidth management unit configured to set a pre-joining bandwidth, which is an allowable bandwidth for channels to be pre-joined, based on the collected data; a channel selection unit configured to select channels to be pre-joined according to channel preference of a user; and a channel pre-join unit configured to pre-join the channels selected by the channel selection unit within the set pre-joining bandwidth, wherein the channel selection unit comprises a channel preference calculation unit that is configured to calculate the user's preference for a particular channel based on a rating of a program currently broadcast on the particular channel and the probability that the user will use a remote controller button that relates to the particular channel, wherein the collected data includes at least one of the number of channel changes, average channel zapping time, average channel browsing time, average channel viewing time, or the number of uses of a button of a remote controller, wherein the bandwidth management unit allocates additional pre-joining bandwidth if the channel zapping time of a previous cycle does not satisfy the user's demand.