The steady growth of IPTV subscribers and services revenue continues to show strong upside potential in Europe and Asia with some exceptions in North America, according to the new MRG report IPTV Global Forecast Report -- October 2006.

In Europe and Asia, most growth is driven by the large incumbent Telcos, whereas in North America, the small independent IPTV providers are driving much of the growth. Deployments at incumbent carriers such as France Telecom and Telefonica in Europe and PCCW in Hong Kong are now together serving nearly 1.5 million IPTV subscribers, and are forecast to experience significantly more growth. Likewise, competitive (non-incumbent) IPTV providers like FastWeb (Italy), Free and Neuf (both from France) and spin-offs from France Telecom also are leading in innovation and subscriber growth in their markets.

"The one group of IPTV providers not sharing in the current success of IPTV is comprised of those that have selected Microsoft's software," states Bob Larribeau, IPTV Director for MRG. "Deployments at AT&T, Bell Canada, Deutsche Telekom, and Swisscom are on hold waiting for Microsoft's software."

Microsoft's slowness to market has had a strong negative effect on the forecast for North America in particular, which has not been offset by the stronger growth of small independent operators and of Verizon's (IPTV-based) VOD services.

The forecast projects that there will be 50.5 million IPTV subscribers by the end of 2010 with global IPTV revenue of $16.7 billion in 2010 -- $12.8 billion in service revenue and $3.9 billion in system and software revenue.

The report also tracks capital spending of the top 29 global service providers, broken down by four regions; and tracks capital regional spending in seven IPTV product sectors, including Access, Video Headend, VOD, Content-Protection, Middleware, Set-top Box and System-Integration, also broken into four regions. The report is based on information from over 470 IPTV service providers.

The (72-page) IPTV Global Forecast Report -- October 2006 is available in printed format for $3,995.00 US; as a Departmental PDF License for $5,200.00 US; and is available free as part of MRG's IPTV Tracking Service. For more information or to order the report, contact Rob Smith at 408-524-9767 or rsmith@mrgco.com, or visit www.mrgco.com.