RHK, a telecom analyst firm, released a research report predicting the global online entertainment market, which includes services such as IPTV, video on demand, music downloads, games, gambling and adult content, will rise at a 24% compound annual growth rate between 2004 and 2009, reaching $36 billion. In 2005, the global online entertainment market is expected to generate $15.8 billion in revenue. According to their research, video and music will be fastest growing markets over the forecast period.

Verizon will soon bring to parts of the Virginia Beach area its new FiOS service.

The company today announced plans to build a fiber-optic network that will deliver faster data speeds, crystal clear voice – and also has the capability to offer a full suite of future video services – to residence and business customers here. The company will seek a franchise agreement from the local authority before offering cable service in a particular community.

Verizon customers in Holliston and Reading now can experience breathtaking high-speed Internet access as the company begins to offer its Verizon FiOS (FYE’-ose) suite of services to homes here.

Verizon is rolling out the industry’s premier consumer broadband services to most of its customers in this community, as well as at least 25 other communities in eastern Massachusetts.

Verizon is folling out FiOS to businesses and consumers in 24 New Jersey communities.

The company today announced it is rolling out a fiber-optic network that will deliver faster data speeds and crystal clear voice to residence and business customers. This transformational upgrade to Verizon's network also has the capability to offer a full suite of video services. Verizon had suspended the project a year ago because of an adverse regulatory climate in New Jersey, a situation that is improving.

CNet is reporting a unique mobile TV pilot in Finland. The pilot will be testing TV services being offered over mobile phones. The selected phone customers are able to view real-time TV and radio programs on a Nokia smart phone equipped with a special accessory to receive mobile TV broadcasts. Test users will be able to view MTV, YLE and Nelonen programs as well as international theme channels such as CNN, BBC World, Euronews, Eurosport, ViVa Plus and Fashion TV.

SkyStream Networks® announced that seven telecom operators located throughout southern, central, and eastern Europe and Scandinavia have selected SkyStream's IP video delivery platforms to deploy digital television and music services over DSL in the past six months.

Amdocs announced the availability of its IP Convergence Solution for IPTV, a unique, comprehensive solution that allows service providers to offer digital content and entertainment services to solidify customer loyalty, while ensuring company growth. The solution combines Amdocs consulting and implementation services, the recently announced Amdocs 6 portfolio of integrated, modular products and solutions from an extensive IPTV partner ecosystem, including Bitband, Intel, Kasenna, NagraVision, NDS, OpenTV and Orca Interactive. Amdocs is already working with Microsoft on the implementation of a major IP convergence project for a Tier 1 Wireline service provider including the roll- out of IPTV services.

Optibase, Ltd. a leading provider of advanced digital video solutions today announced that the Company's MPEG MovieMaker 400 encoders are enabling TV over IP to the home streaming services in the Tangshan metropolitan area in China.

The Tangshan metropolitan area serves over 50,000 ADSL, Cable and optical LAN subscribers. In order to provide these subscribers with enhanced content, Tangshan Netcom and the Broadcast Television Authority have built a sophisticated TV head-end solution that will enable access to live and foreign television content as well as interactive services. The video head-end solution, which will enable triple play services (Voice, High-speed Internet and Video), will deliver dozens of live video channels and video-on-demand over an IP network designed to reach all of Tangshan's metropolitan subscribers.

Verizon customers in Annandale now can experience breathtaking high-speed Internet access as the company begins to offer its Verizon FiOS (FYE’-ose) Internet service to homes here.

Verizon is rolling out the industry’s premier consumer broadband services to many of its customers in this Northern Virginia community, as well as the areas around Braddock Road and Little River Turnpike between the Capital Beltway and Interstate 395.

If the neighbors weren't already jealous enough that you had a rediculously fast Internet connection for a standard price, you now have state-of-art solutions center.

Employees at Verizon's newest, state-of-the-art call center began handling calls this morning in support of consumers who have the most advanced broadband services in the country.

Verizon today is celebrating the grand opening of its Fiber Solutions Center, located on the second floor of 200 New Market Fair Mall. The company expects to have approximately 180 employees staffing the center by the end of March.

SupportSoft, Inc., a leading provider of Real-Time Service Management (RTSM(TM)) software, today announced SupportSoft ServiceVerify(TM) 2.0, a platform that enables digital service providers to automatically verify the successful installation and ongoing operation of triple play services, whether VoIP, video (IPTV) or broadband. ServiceVerify enables service providers to more accurately pinpoint and cost-effectively resolve problems associated with triple play service delivery within either the "last mile" of the provider's network or the customer premises.

Digital television has gained a new lease of life in Europe during the past year, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics. The analysts state 25.7 percent of Europe's TV households acquired digital television by the end of 2004, up from 21.1 percent in 2003. The keys to this success were attributed to new services such as DTTV (Digital Terrestrial television) and IPTV (Internet Protocol television).

IPTV providers, such as France's Free and Italy's Fastweb, increased their user base by 450,000 in 2004, while Europe's DTTV operators, such as the UK's FreeView and Germany's free-to-air broadcasters, added 4.4 million subscribers. By 2010, IPTV will have become an established fourth digital platform, with 11.3 million subscribers. DTTV will continue to grow rapidly during that same timeframe as more countries establish services, reaching 42.2 million households.

What is IPTV? How does IPTV work? Why use IPTV? Who offers IPTV? What equipment is needed to use IPTV? Lawrence Harte, President of Althos Publishing, gives answers to those questions in his new book "Introduction to IP Television (IPTV)".

"This book explains how and why people and companies are using IP television and Internet television services. You will discover how global television services are already available through the Internet and how you can use standard television to watch global television channels using analog television adapter boxes."

A comprehensive editorial was featured on RedNova discussing the implications of Internet Television and how it will reach into our lives and change everything as we know it today.

To that point, the article discusses the changes of lifestyle this new technology will offer us. No longer will we be:

• faced with a limited number of TV channels.
• forced to watch what the stations deliver to us.
• limited to location specific TV offerings.

Coaxsys Incorporated, the leader in delivering customer premise networking over existing wires, today announced that McDonough Telephone Cooperative of Illinois will be using Coaxsys' IPTV 7000 TVnet Network to deliver Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) to its customers. McDonough is the first member of the Western Illinois Video (WIV) group to achieve an in-home networking solution over existing wiring in the home.