Survey: cable, telco video rivalry growing
A new survey says telecom companies will become major rivals of the cable industry in the video market within a year.
More than half of the respondents to a survey by Tellabs and Telephony magazine taken at the GLOBALCOMM 2006 trade show in Chicago concluded that the competition would be in place within a year, compared to last year when most believed it would take about three years.
Cable is girding for a regulatory and marketing battle against phone companies that are better equipped to offer Internet Protocol Television over their fixed-line DSL services.
The poll also found that a vast majority of telco executives believed the Internet-savvy youth market would be a major driver in telecom services.
Other trends spotted by the magazine pollsters were a preference for Ethernet over Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) for delivery of voice, data and video, and an emphasis on greater convergence of fixed and mobile services.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International