BT was atop the IPTV headlines this week as announcements of their agreement with Philips to provide set-top boxes for their future broadband offering came out. BT plans on launching their broadband service next year.

The service will combine digital terrestrial channels, video on demand, and catchup TV which will allow users to watch any of the previous seven days television schedule on-demand. Other features include communication services such as instant messaging, chat and video telephony all via the television.

The TELECOM 2005 conference took place this week with some interesting speeches coming out of it. You can jump over to the TELECOM '05 web site and watch videos of the speeches.

Lastly, the Connected Home 2005 also took place this week. There's an interesting article below entitled, "Networked Home 'too confusing' for consumers" that came out of that conference.

Here are some interesting reads...

TELECOM '05 wrapped-up after a terrific week of innovative exhibits, thought-provoking speeches, and overflowing sessions exploring the new technologies and products that will forever change the world of communications.

"This week at TELECOM '05 we heard from some of the brightest leaders in the industry and saw products from hundreds of the most innovative technology companies in the world. These companies understand what it takes to succeed in today's rapidly changing communications marketplace and offered attendees a clear vision of what's next for communications," said Walter B. McCormick Jr., President and CEO of USTelecom.

"What we have is the ability to emulate individual subscriber traffic from thousands of households with a triple play mix of Internet TV viewers, VoIP calls and high speed internet traffic" says Robert Winters, co-founder and CMO of Shenick Network Systems.

Verizon announced separate programming-distribution agreements with one network group and nine independently owned networks for carriage of 12 Spanish language channels on Verizon FiOS TV, which launched its first market on Sept. 22 in Keller, Texas.

The Apple Valley Town Council Tuesday night (10/25) took a major step toward providing residents here with true choice for their cable television services, voting in favor of Verizon's video-franchise application. The council is expected to take up the issue again for a final vote at its Nov. 8 meeting.

If approved on the second vote, the franchise would allow Verizon to deliver its technologically advanced FiOS TV product to Apple Valley’s 22,000 households via the company's new, fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network.

Verizon announced a programming-distribution agreement with TV One, the new entertainment and lifestyle network for African-American adults. Under the agreement, TV One is now available on Verizon FiOS TV, which was launched in Keller, Texas, on Sept. 22. The agreement was signed prior to the Keller launch, and TV One is currently available in Keller and will be available in future FiOS TV markets.

BT set out its vision for nationwide next generation TV as it announced that Europe's largest electronics company Philips has been selected to supply the set top box to deliver a range of unique services. Every set top box will include a personal video recorder (PVR) capable of storing up to 80 hours of programming and capable of delivering High Definition content. The BT-Philips partnership builds on the recently announced alliance with Microsoft, which will provide Microsoft TV IPTV Edition as the software platform for BT's TV over broadband service.

FPT Telecom, a leading multimedia and Internet service provider in Vietnam, has completed the deployment of the first metro Ethernet and optical network in the country. The 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) next-generation network, built with a total metro Ethernet, broadband and Internet Protocol/Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) solution from Cisco Systems, will provide FPT Telecom with a platform to deliver a wide variety of data, voice and video services over high-speed broadband connections.

SkyStream announced that China Telecom, China's largest telecommunications service provider, selected SkyStream's zBand PUSH video-on-demand (VOD) platform in addition to SkyStream's suite of IP video networking solutions to expand its rural Internet and video-on-demand service to remote areas.

China Telecom plans to extend broadband Internet and video services from the headend in its Shanghai Satellite division, and offer video-on-demand, video conferencing and Internet-on-demand in remote areas via satellite where broadband services are not currently available. China Telecom plans to roll out the on-demand, satellite-based services nationwide over the next 10 years to serve the 75 percent of the Chinese population that currently lives in rural areas. Over three-fourths of China is covered by mountains, desert and forest, which preclude extensive communications coverage from fiber terrestrial networks.

EGT, Inc. announced that the company closed its highest revenue quarter to date, achieving an impressive 30% increase over last year's quarter, and is on track to achieve 50% growth year to year. Overwhelming industry acceptance has enabled EGT to experience this record growth. Growing faster than competing encoder manufacturers, EGT has become a serious contender in the digital video marketplace. The increased revenues, in conjunction with new products and new channels of distribution, highlight EGT's continued market success in digital video processing equipment.

Tut Systems, Inc. announced that Fidelity Communications Company selected its Astria content processors and its newly released Astria video services processor (VSP) to deliver advanced TV services to customers in Eastern Missouri.

UEFA has appointed NTT Communications and Delta Tre to develop a service which will bring the UEFA Champions League live to the Internet.

2006/07 start
The service will start during the 2006/07 UEFA Champions League season and will be able to serve up to 50,000 concurrent live video streams for broadcasters. The Live IP Video project is co-ordinated by UEFA Media Technologies, a fully owned subsidiary of UEFA, and will be developed by a partner alliance consisting of NTT Communications and Delta Tre. Security and billing solutions will be provided by Entriq.

AirCell announces the successful completion of its extended airborne demonstration program that allowed potential airline customers and others to experience the AirCell Broadband System's technology in flight.

Participants also made VoIP phone calls using handsets and over their laptops using Skype. They used a Slingbox, a simple device enabling them to watch their home TV live from their PC. Passengers logged into their corporate VPNs to access e-mail and company directories. They watched live news, entertainment, and sporting event broadcasts. They called friends and colleagues, checked their voice mails, and even updated their return airline reservations from aboard the demo aircraft.

SkyStream announced Aztech Arizona LLC has chosen SkyStream's Mediaplex-20 video headend to provide MPEG-4 AVC encoding and transcoding for the largest operational MPEG-4 deployment in the U.S., as measured by subscriber count and channels offered.

Motorola, Inc. is demonstrating its continued leadership in next-generation fiber access solutions at TELECOM '05 with several new technologies that are expected to accelerate the deployment of IPTV-based entertainment services. The offerings -- including Internet protocol television (IPTV) over GPON and BPON, high- density optical networks terminals, and high-definition television (HDTV) and multi-stream IP residential gateways -- extend the ways carriers can cost effectively bring digital video entertainment, high-speed Internet and telephony services to subscribers.