As many as 100 million folks could be taking IPTV subscriptions by 2010, according to recent estimates from Alcatel-Lucent. The folks at A-L must not have consulted with the folks at iSuppli, who just last week projected 63 million IPTV subs for 2010. A-L also said there were 1.1 million IPTV subs in 2005, while iSuppli counted 2.4 million
To be fair, neither firm provides a hard definition of an IPTV subscriber, i.e. someone paying a monthly fee to a network provider, or someone watching Internet Protocol television over a broadband connection. The divergence reflects both the amorphous nature of the acronym and the uncertain science of prediction. One generality seems to be present across the numbers, however, and that's an expectation that IPTV, whatever it may be, is poised for a boom.
For some more fun with numbers:
- check out the Alcatel-Lucent estimates here