BT was atop the IPTV headlines this week as announcements of their agreement with Philips to provide set-top boxes for their future broadband offering came out. BT plans on launching their broadband service next year.

The service will combine digital terrestrial channels, video on demand, and catchup TV which will allow users to watch any of the previous seven days television schedule on-demand. Other features include communication services such as instant messaging, chat and video telephony all via the television.

The TELECOM 2005 conference took place this week with some interesting speeches coming out of it. You can jump over to the TELECOM '05 web site and watch videos of the speeches.

Lastly, the Connected Home 2005 also took place this week. There's an interesting article below entitled, "Networked Home 'too confusing' for consumers" that came out of that conference.

Here are some interesting reads...

Cox's Robbins Ruffles Feathers
Light Reading - October 27, 2005
"I think it's funny that SBC is now talking in those commercials about doing something that Cox has been doing for years," Robbins said. He had hit the stage just after SBC VP Lea Ann Champion finished her IPTV pep talk, which ended with some SBC TV commercials on the large video screens. Champion was filling in for SBC CEO Ed Whitacre, who was one of the Telecom show’s many no-shows.

Deutsche Telekom opts for VDSL2
Ovum - October 28, 2005
"As IPTV deployments become more of a reality, operators are beginning to focus on the amount of bandwidth that will be needed to deliver dynamic content and high-definition (HD) programming, which is re-opening the debate as to whether DSL can support HD programming. Recently, BT, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, and SBC threw their support behind VDSL2 by announcing various VDSL2 initiatives. DT and FT believe that 40-50 Mbps VDSL2 service will provide the necessary bandwidth for them to offer HD IPTV services as well as higher-speed Internet access and downloads."

SBC CTO says IPTV is on track
Network World - October 26, 2005
"SBC claims its Project Lightspeed fiber build out is not delayed, even though it's now scheduled to pass 18 million homes six months later than initially intended."

"SBC is now saying Lightspeed will pass those homes in mid-2008 instead of year-end 2007 as first planned when it announced the project last year. Lightspeed is the carrier's $4 billion to $6 billion effort to provide fiber- and DSL-based voice, data and video services to consumers and businesses."

The revolution will be televised
Boston Phoenix - October 27, 2005
"First, blogging revolutionized print media. Now podcasting is reshaping the way we listen online. In the near future, it’s a safe bet you’ll be treating your computer more and more like a TV. Cheaper bandwidth, more and more people with broadband connections, peer-to-peer technologies, and proliferating tools for Internet video publishing mean there’s already a lot of video content on the Web. Some bloggers are trading their keyboards for video cameras, screening news clips and offering snarky commentary in between, like ersatz Jon Stewarts. (The "vlogger" is born.) And, with more and more companies racing to offer more copyrighted works online — music videos, TV shows, even movies — there’s much more to come."

Networked Home "too confusing" for consumers
Digital-Lifestyles.info - October 26, 2005
"The futuristic vision of a connected home with content moving seamlessly from our TV to our PC and on to our mobile device is still a long way off, according to key speakers at The Connected Home conference in London today."

The Next 4,000 Days
Forbes - October 25, 2005
"Ma Bell never saw it coming. In 1994, the year the commercial Internet was born, history seemed to be going AT&T’s way. Total long-distance revenue was soaring, and it would continue to grow through the 1990s, hitting a cool $100 billion by decade’s end. Then, suddenly, the business began to implode. Today, phone calls are just another application you can run on the Internet for free."

DSL Prime: VDSL Gear Drops to $66 for 100 Mbps
ISP-Planet - October 24, 2005
"Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet, stunned the LR crowd with lavish praise for Verizon's fiber build. His comments about behemoth telcos are typically livid, and often very funny. Metcalfe cares about results more than rhetoric; three million Verizon homes by the end of 2006 can choose 30 meg FIOS, and three million more are confirmed for 2006. An additional twelve million are scheduled for 100 meg GPON by the end of the decade. I called Larry Babbio a hero last year for this kind of service, and will praise him again when they do my building."

SBC on Lightspeed: Full Fiber Ahead
Light Reading - October 24, 2005
"On an earnings conference call last week, SBC officials said Lightspeed is on track to connect 2 million homes in the project this year. The company also reported a fairly strong third quarter in which the company absorbed costs from its Cingular Wireless LLC acquisition and inched closer to finalizing a merger with AT&T Corp."

Executive Editor's Letter: The Slingbox Dilemma
CableWORLD - October 24, 2005
"I hear warnings about the Napsterization of cable all the time. The doomsayers caution that MSOs and programmers need to figure out how to make money from peer-to-peer video file sharing, or they risk the same fate as the music industry, which has lost billions from illegal downloads on websites like napster.com."

Digital TV Households In Western Europe Crossed Over The 50 Million Mark During The First Half Of 2005
Infosat - October 22, 2005
"Canalys research indicates the number of households with digital TV in Western Europe crossed over the 50 million mark during the first half of 2005, driven both by pay-TV providers moving their subscribers from analogue to digital transmission as well as the arrival of free-to-air services in many countries. Governments with short deadlines for the analogue TV switch-off have started promoting free-to-air digital TV through subsidies and action plans."

Chips Brace for 40-Gig
Light Reading - October 21, 2005
"Need proof that 40 Gbit/s is getting close? Folks at this week's Network Systems Design Conference were talking specifics about how the transition to OC768 is starting out and which technology aspects could be the most problematic."

"The conclusion: In the transition to 40 Gbit/s, the pressure is on the electronics, not the optics."

Possible Impact Of Sky Buying EasyNet
Digital-Lifestyles.info - October 21, 2005
"Sky have been mulling about an IPTV service for a while. They were in discussions with THUS who provide the telecoms back-end for their SkyTalk service and helped Sky with their WapTV services, they were talking about doing an IPTV trial with THUS, but THUS pulled out of the LLU arena due to lack of cash. They were looking at spending £20m+ on just a trial."