The Australian writes that service providers will now need to apply for a broadcast license for IPTV based upon recent information by the federal government. "The Government will replace the industry regulator in handing out the licences, making Australia one of the few places in the world where new media services such as the internet are required to follow "old" media rules which apply to existing television services."

Clive Akass writes in Personal Computer World that NTL is testing 100 Mbps connections to the home. NTL hopes to leverage the speed to broadcast broadband high definition TV.

Meanwhile, BT announced that faster broadband services, up to 8 Mbps, will be available starting March 31st. For the full 8 Mbps, BT says that people will have to be "living or working close to their local telephone exchange".

Indiana consumers will benefit from competition and greater choice as a result of the overwhelming support by the state's General Assembly that passed a new telecom and video reform legislation signed into law today by Gov. Mitch Daniels.

House Bill 1279 was recently approved in the Indiana Senate by a 42-7 vote, and overwhelmingly passed in the Indiana House by a 78-18 vote for concurrence.

European telecoms operators must develop strategies tailored to local markets if IPTV - television over broadband - is to be a revenue earner rather than simply a product differentiator, according to Telco TV: European market opportunities and operator strategies, a new report from Analysys, the global advisers on telecoms, IT and media.

Intel Corporation is outfitting server, storage and telecommunications equipment makers with a new ingredient for squeezing more performance out of space- and power-constrained environments. It is the first low-voltage Intel Xeon processor to combine dual-core technology with Intel's innovative power management capabilities, helping to boost energy-efficient price/performance with up to two to four times the performance-per-watt of previous Intel Xeon processors and platforms.

Lucent Technologies will feature IP-based next generation solutions, including technology for IP Multimedia TV and personalized lifestyle applications, at the TelecomNext trade show in Las Vegas next week.

In addition, John Meyer, president, Lucent Worldwide Services, will present a keynote address on the opportunities and challenges for delivering new services by transforming networks to the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture, and Janet Davidson, Lucent chief strategy officer, will appear on the ATIS ThinkTank Vendor Panel.

NEC America, Inc. (NEC), a leading provider of innovative communications products, solutions and services, will unveil new optical infrastructure solutions intended to address the growing bandwidth needs driven by triple play service rollouts -- including Video on Demand (VoD) and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) at TelecomNEXT 2006, the premier event for the optical networking industry, held March 19 - 23, 2006, in Las Vegas. In NEC's booth #249, NEC will have on live display its new optical solution, as well as its complete line of North American optical networking solutions, including the recently announced GPON solution.

Fujitsu Network Communications Inc., a leading supplier of IT and wireline/wireless networking solutions, will be demonstrating and discussing "Innovation at Work" at the upcoming TelecomNEXT 2006 conference and exhibition in Las Vegas, Nev. In addition to the Fujitsu booth where all solutions will be discussed (No. 1337), Fujitsu will also participate in a panel discussion in the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) booth (No. 2204). For more information on this exciting new event, please visit http://www.telecom-next.com.

Tut Systems, Inc., an industry leader enabling the delivery of next-generation data and video services over broadband networks, will showcase its IPTV solutions at TelecomNEXT in Las Vegas, NV on March 21st and 22nd in booth 531.

In addition, Tut Systems' Director of Strategic Marketing, Keith Wymbs, will present a paper entitled "Lessons Learned from the World's First MPEG-4 AVC IPTV Deployments" at the Video and New Technologies Session. The paper will draw on case studies that are representative of MPEG-4 AVC deployments in IPTV. The talk will take place on the Exhibit Floor on Tuesday, March 21 at 2:20pm.

TVover.net is proud to be a media sponsor for TelecomNEXT. If you have a press release during the event, please contact us. If you would like more information on the event, visit www.telecom-next.com.

24-26 April, 2006
Hotel Maritim Berlin, Germany

Recently dubbed by a high profile mobile operator as "the de facto D2C content delivery and billing event", World Telemedia has led the way since 1989 for businesses learning how to make money from premium content. The rapid and successful growth of this event has corresponded with the maturing of the premium content market making it the industry's twice-yearly 'must attend' trade show. World Telemedia remains underpinned by a core of entrepreneurial service providers that recognise and understand the value of partnering across a value chain to offer their customers choice in quality content, billing and delivery. While a dominant mobile theme transcends World Telemedia, its early adoption and inclusion of interactive TV, traditional IVR and Internet content means it is ideally placed for companies now looking at "Quadruple Play" and other convergence strategies.

Auroras Entertainment, LLC and Wegener Corporation announced that they have entered into an agreement under which Auroras has licensed WEGENER's COMPEL Network Control system for use in IPTV, bringing world-class network control, including blackout management for sporting content, to IPTV.

A new survey finds that the nation's most tech-savvy electronics consumers are beginning to consider IPTV - a mix of new interactive television and communication offerings delivered via broadband and Internet protocol - as a viable option to today's cable and satellite offerings. The survey, sponsored by Siemens Communications Inc., was conducted by market research firm In-Stat.

Eighteen percent of early adopters, who now subscribe to cable or satellite television, said they "probably" or "definitely" would switch to get IPTV television services from their telephone company provider. If given a 10 percent savings offering on an IPTV package, an additional 34 percent of the remaining non-committed early adopters said they "probably" or "definitely" would switch.

The most popular services that early adopters said they are most willing to pay extra for included Time-shifted TV, Video Telephony/Chat, Video Home Surveillance and Gaming.

A USA Today article explains the rising shift from bundled packaged programming to a la carte programming, whereby consumers would have a choice to select only the channels they want to pay for. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has already expressed his support in a la carte programming. Additionally, as AT&T and Verizon search for ways to improve the attractiveness of their IPTV offerings, we may see them offering a la carte programming.

Meanwhile, some cable companies and prgorammers continue to retort that packaged programming is a "bargain" for consumers. Fox Networks CEO Anthony Vinciquerra said, "I think the (expanded-basic) model, as it is today, works pretty well. To challenge that is to try to fix something that doesn't need fixing."

Yet, in many European countries, companies already offer a la carte programming. Spain, Italy, Canada and Hong Kong are among the countries where consumers have the choice buy channels individually. The USA Today also reports that Fox's sister company, BSkyB in the UK, already offers customers near a la carte programming through a selection of more than 90 packages. When asked why the U.S. doesn't follow their footstep, Vinciquerra says, "Foreign markets grew up differently."

Consumers around the globe are confused about what Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) means, according to a survey released by Accenture.

The survey of 6,000 consumers across the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy found that 46 percent do not understand the term IPTV - whereby broadcast-quality digital television is delivered over an Internet-enabled telephone network.

How's the Slingbox work overseas? RealTechNews ran an interesting field test to evaluate how the Slingbox performed when hosted in San Francisco and being accessed from a wireless hotspot in London.

The results are impressive for the Slingbox. Unfortunately, the article doesn't inform us what broadband speed they have for their connection in San Francisco, but you can see from their screenshot and speed that the television picture is quite viewable.