Slovak Telekom, a.s., a group member of Deutsche Telekom and Slovakia's leading telecommunication services provider (which provides its products and services under the T-Com brand), has selected AlcatelAlcatel as the supplier for its upcoming Internet protocol television (IPTV) deployment, based on the combination of Alcatel's services integration solution and the Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform.

Shenick Network Systems, an award winning provider of high performance IP communications test systems, today announced that it has added significant IPTV and triple play enhancements to the release of its diversifEye Version 3.0 software.

With diversifEye 3.0, Shenick is the only IP communications test vendor to provide the degree of granularity required to test overall performance and quality of service (QoS), coupled with the ability to drill down to each IPTV, VoIP and internet user for true quality of experience (QoE) assessment. All functionality is packaged into a single box test system.

Tut Systems, Inc., an industry leader enabling the delivery of next-generation data and video services over broadband networks, today announced that Tut Systems was Ranked #1 by Multimedia Research Group, Inc. (MRG Inc.) among video headend vendors for IPTV channels deployed. Tut Systems was the only IPTV headend vendor earning a top ranking in more than one segment by taking top honors in the Global, North American and Rest of World markets.

SupportSoft, Inc., a leading provider of Real-Time Service Management (RTSM) software, will examine the challenges related to installation and customer support for triple play services -- VoIP, IPTV and high speed data. The Company will share how leading digital service providers are effectively managing these challenges using support automation software at the first annual Southeastern Europe Broadband Conference and Exposition.

Goldstone Technologies Ltd, the Hyderabad-based IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) services provider, has announced its expanison of operations into the IPTV sector to serve its global clients.

Goldstone is happy to announce that it is moving into IPTV market to provide triple-play services.

TANDBERG Television announced it will unveil an on-demand interactive advertising system at the NCTA National Show 2006, booth #3751. The company's new dynamic ad placement solution integrates advanced video-on-demand (VOD) capabilities with advanced interactive television functionality. It enables operators and programmers to engage subscribers with compelling integrated advertising experiences tightly embedded in broadcast and VOD programming.

The number of households subscribing to new Television via Internet Protocol (IPTV) services offered by telecom carriers in Western Europe will reach 3.3 million this year and 16.7 million in 2010, according to new forecasts from Gartner Inc.

Despite the robust growth in users, Gartner said that IPTV will struggle over the next five years to become a mainstream revenue opportunity for telecom carriers. Competing against entrenched Pay TV and free-to-air terrestrial TV providers who deliver good quality programming for free, carriers will resort to low priced services and bundles to drive initial subscriber uptake. As a result, carriers' IPTV revenue in Western Europe during the period will grow from 336 million euros in 2006 to only 3 billion euros by 2010.

Capitalizing on a truly global game phenomenon, TVHead has secured the worldwide iTV rights for Tetris--including cable, satellite and IPTV--through 2010. The premier games-on-demand television network will provide the wildly popular game to cable and IPTV subscribers as part of its premium offerings. With its user-friendly interface and addictive appeal, Tetris is believed to be the world's best selling electronic game, due to its wide availability on almost every modern computer and game system available.

The new IPTV Global Forecast 2006-2009 from Multimedia Research Group, Inc (MRG) reveals some noteworthy developments since the last IPTV (IP TV) Forecast in September 2005, including subscriber growth from 4.3 million to 36.8 million in 2005-2009; and system (cap ex) revenue growth from $740 million to $4.3 billion in 2005-2009.

Shanghai Media Group (SMG) is using Envivio MPEG-4 IPTV video headends to encode digital video programming for approximately 80,000 subscribers in the Northern Province of Hei Long Jiang and the City of Shanghai. The IPTV services are delivered via China Netcom Company Limited and Shanghai Telecom Co., Ltd., respectively. To increase video quality and customer satisfaction, SMG has deployed 90 encoders from the Envivio Broadcast Series.

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Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, introduced legislation known as measure AB 2897, the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006, to the California legislature Thursday aimed at providing telephone companies to get state franchises for their IPTV services.

As usual, the cable companies stated that this would allow the telephone companies to cherry pick areas for their service. Nunez's response was interesting, "Some say (the phone companies) are only going to deploy broadband into rich communities and the poor communities are going to be left behind. Nothing could be further from the truth. Minority communities are among the most loyal and consistent customers for in-home entertainment in California."

Bringing high-quality casual games to broad television audiences, TVHead announced the details of its premier games-on-demand TV network. TVHead opens up new revenue streams for cable and IPTV operators by offering the nation's first massively deployable games-on-demand network for cable and IPTV. Today's news is the culmination of 18 months of stealth development.

NeuLion, Inc. announced that it will be demonstrating the NeuLion iPTV Platform at NAB 2006 in Las Vegas, April 22nd through April 27th.

The NeuLion iPTV Platform connects the Internet to your TV, delivering high-quality streaming content that you can watch on your TV or PC. Visit booth SL2407D in the Next Generation Content Delivery Showcase at NAB to experience the possibilities.

CNet has a story titled "High-def TV not ready for Net's prime time" that is worth the read. Of course it is a very controversial subject as some sites claim they stream HD quality video and several companies are working different technology methods to stream HD for Internet TV.

However, the article goes onto say that HD over the net is a ways off because the pipes just can't handle it yet. "In fact, every industry expert interviewed for this story said that the way things stand now there just isn't enough bandwidth going into the home to stream the more expansive HD video."