Eighty-three percent of SUPERCOMM 2005 attendees polled in a Tellabs/Telephony survey believe that telecommunications service providers will emerge as competitors to cable companies in video services. More than half (54%) of the 1,245 respondents feel that this competitive gap will close in less than three years. The survey was held on the SUPERCOMM 2005 show floor June 6-June 9.

Questions asked focused on services that drive "Echo Boomer" spending and video service delivery. Echo Boomers, the children of baby boomers, born between the early 1980s and 1995, comprise nearly one-third of the U.S. population.

Other survey results include:

• High Definition Television (HDTV) is the number one video application that drives consumer spending, followed closely by Internet Protocol TV (IPTV). Video on Demand (VoD) and satellite TV came in third and fourth, respectively;
• Half of the survey's respondents felt that consumer and business triple-play voice, video and data will be delivered over a single, converged network within three years;
• Hardware (approximately 30%), software/middleware (25%) and content (25%) were cited as the largest obstacles to telco video deployment with OSS/billing technology the least cited (14%) and;
• More than half of the respondents think that best-effort Ethernet is a successful market offering, with 58% saying yes and 39% saying no.

"The results of this joint survey are clear: Telecom service providers face a competitive imperative to accelerate their video delivery strategies to meet the expectations of the communications industry and of the customers they serve," said Jason Meyers, editor-in-chief of Telephony. "They face some serious challenges as they attempt to become video providers in an increasingly converged and competitive market. Telephony is committed to providing timely and thorough coverage of the technology, service, and business stories that unfold as these service providers begin to deliver on the IPTV promise."

"Based on these results, SUPERCOMM attendees show a healthy combination of realism and optimism in assessing the challenges they face in winning the converged services race in the Echo Boomer era," added Stephen McCarthy, executive vice-president global customer sales and service for Tellabs.