We know we have - 15 megabits per second downstream with 2 megabits per second upstream at the normal DSL price of $49.95. Perhaps you haven't heard about this little diamond in the rough offered by Verizon. In preparation for their Internet TV offering along with a lagging U.S. in comparison with internet services offered Asian nations, Verizon has been laying fiber-optics all around the U.S.

So what is Verizon FiOS? Verizon FiOS is the new internet service offered by Verizon which is described as fiber-optic broadband. To be able to allow these speeds, Verizon has been laying a fiber-optic network that enables this super-fast DSL service. Pricing plans range from $39.95 per month, depending on whether it is packaged with phone service, for up to 5 megabits per second downstream with 2 megabits per second upstream. They also have plans from $49.95 for 15 Mbps/2 Mbps to $199.95 for 30 Mbps/5 Mbps.

The IPTV World Forum will be meeting March 8th & 9th in central London. You can find more details on their web site. This will be a great time to gain a grasp of how Internet TV is evolving and the magnitude that it will hit us with. There will be speakers from companies around the globe. Here's a preview of day one:

"Interest in IPTV services has been stimulated by a combination of technological improvements and commercial pressure. Day one will look at the current state of the IPTV market, the business opportunities, and the services being trialed worldwide. It will examine the advantages that IPTV offers network operators and the new revenue streams that may emerge. It will also look at the different IPTV technologies and the products manufacturers are bringing to the market."

With executive leaders from the cable, Internet and satellite markets, Brightcove, Inc., was today unveiled as a new online television and video distribution company where mainstream and emerging video content publishers and programmers can offer their products directly to consumers over the Internet.

Brightcove was established to take advantage of the convergence of the Internet and television, a trend that is spawning the birth of hundreds of thousands of individual programs and channels online. The company will provide an online service that offers video publishers and programmers an Internet distribution channel for their products and will offer consumers a rich set of services for accessing and using this programming. Brightcove executives bring more than 40 years of successful experience from companies such as Allaire, ATG, British Sky Broadcasting (BskyB), Comcast, Macromedia and News Corporation.

China’s film, radio and television authority is to issue IPTV licenses in the coming months. Telecommunications operators China Telecom, China Netcom and China Unicom are already testing the service. "Once the license is available, we will start the service," said a China Netcom source. China Telecom, one of China's major telecommunications operators, announced that it plans to launch large-scale promotion of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) in 2005 on its broadband website.

IPTV is not simply a way of accessing internet content through a TV screen. It is a new medium that streams a huge choice of video and audio content into homes. For existing TV stations, it’s a possibility to greatly expand their influence around the world, while non-TV media units will have the opportunity to enter a business with a very low-cost.

Could broadband television be right around the corner? Alcatel and Microsoft announced on February 22 a global collaboration agreement designed to rapidly accelerate the availability of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services for broadband operators world-wide. Alcatel and Microsoft expect that this precedent-setting agreement between a leading provider of Triple Play (voice, data, video) solutions and a leading provider of software solutions will help expand the quickly-growing ecosystem of IPTV industry partners and enable telecommunication providers to take advantage of global economies of scale fuelled by large-scale IPTV deployments planned across the globe.