IPTV

The economist has an article on IPTV - a direction in which most traditional telecom players seem to be moving in.

With major cable firms enticing customers with a "Triple-play bundle" of TV, Broadband and telephony services, Mobile operators and thirdly VOIP providers.

IPTV is the last ditch effort from Telecom providers to stay in the race. There seem to be lots of legal and technical hurdles for now between them and IPTV.

But assuming they do provide users with the required bandwidth, will they be able to ensure that the user is not putting the available bandwidth to buy third party services from other providers.

"If you cant beat them, join them.", thats the strategy some others like the indian Telecom giant VSNL are adopting. VSNL plans to buy Teleglobe, the worlds largest VOIP Provider.

"Every big telecoms firm is investing to migrate from old, circuit-switched networks to new internet-based ones, with Britain's BT probably moving fastest."

With BT, Verizon, SBC all taking their first steps towards IPTV. We should hope to hear and see more of it very soon.

Terms to look out for: NGN, IMS ...