The Broadband Services Forum (BSF), an international industry resource that provides a forum to address the fundamental business and technology issues vital to the growth and health of the broadband industry, today announced that it will participate in TelecomNEXT. The BSF will host a Supersession that will investigate how entertainment and technology companies can work together on new opportunities for Internet protocol television (IPTV) in today's rapidly evolving communications marketplace.

TelecomNEXT, which replaces SUPERCOMM as USTelecom's annual event, will be held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada from March 19-23, 2006. The BSF session will be held on Monday, March 20 from 1:00 - 3:00 pm.

"With IPTV dramatically changing the entertainment market and helping to spur demand for broadband, IPTV products will be one of the hottest items on the TelecomNEXT exhibit floor. The BSF is a terrific group to give TelecomNEXT attendees the critical information that will help network service providers with their network purchasing decisions," said John Abel, USTelecom Senior VP for Membership, Marketing & Business Development.

The session will give attendees new insight as they develop plans to build next-generation networks to deploy IP video services. Featured panelists include:

• Matthew Marnik, VP of Marketing for BSF, Director of Marketing for the Broadband Networks group at Nortel.
• Ric Brovedani, Sr. Director, Strategic Solutions, Alcatel.
• Mary Francia, Vice President, Telecom Business Innovation for Philips Consumer Electronics.
• James Morehead, Vice President, Product Management and Marketing, SupportSoft.
• Gary Southwell, IPTV solution General Manager, Juniper Networks.

"TelecomNEXT is a great place to learn more about how IPTV will forever change the video market and this session is a tremendous opportunity to take the discussion to the next level and determine how IPTV fits into company business plans," said Matthew Marnik, VP of Marketing, and member of the Board of Directors for the BSF.