A note to readers:
You may have noticed lately that FierceIPTV has a slightly different style and a more international flair. That distinct tone is coming from Tom Burton, our new editor of FierceIPTV. Tom recently moved to Washington, D.C., from Sydney, Australia, and he has an impressive journalism resume. Most recently, he was the publisher of www.australiatalks.com.au, a media news portal. Prior to that he was the Executive Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, which has a daily week day readership of more than 1 million. Tom has followed telecommunications for 20 years, is a quick study and an enterprising reporter. If you haven't done so already, please drop Tom a note and introduce yourself. - Sue
Some random observations from listening to attendees for three days at TelcoTV 2007: Consumer need for HDTV "everywhere" is driving core demand and technical requirements for all new deployments; MPEG-4 is here to stay and will be the standard as MPEG-2 installations struggle to handle the bandwidth demands of a HD/VoIP/super fast internet/all IP world; Verizon's decision to go all fiber is widely acknowledged as the right call and the way to go; triple play is so yesterday--high access services is what it is all about; IP mash ups and the associated dynamic developer culture is what will differentiate IPTV from traditional linear TV; cable technology can easily match the current generation IPTV offering, which makes the business model for IPTV 1.0 dubious at best; Telco's transformation to "digicoms" offering a variety of digital services will also need a generational shift to a media management culture; there is more hope and prayer rather than hard numbers to support current IPTV roll outs and finally, at last, the second tier US telcos are preparing to move to the IP world. Amen - Tom