Telefónica del Perú's general director of TV and multimedia services Werner Schuler told BNamericas that the Spanish telecommunications company plans to offer IPTV services from Mexico to Patagonia. He also predicts the IPTV market in Latin America, excluding Mexico, will generate around USD$1bn in revenues in two years time.

The BBC Trust has given initial approval to BBC's launch of its on-demand services via the iPlayer. The iPlayer will allow users to watch or download movies and TV shows from the last 7 days. Based on feedback from Ofcom (See Ofcom Frowns on BBC's On-demand TV Plan) the BBC will scale back the amount of time a user could store a saved video from 13 weeks to 30 days, prior to viewing. After being played, the video would expire within seven days. However, this gets a bit more confusing when the BBC throws in a "stacked" series clause that allows certain shows to remain viewable until the end of the series.

On Monday, IBM and Cisco provided a glimpse at the companys' soon to be launched end-to-end IPTV product to customers from the Nordic region and Baltic States. The preview took place during the opening of a new facility that demonstrates how the IPTV solution performs during normal operation, under extreme circumstances, and when technical difficulties occur. The IPTV solution is scheduled for official launch in March.

Michigan has created a statewide form that will be used by operators to apply for franchise agreements. Under new franchise laws that took effect January 1st, operators will file the standardized form with local governments who then have 30 days to approve it. The new process aims to speed the rollout of IPTV service and increase competition. AT&T has promised to invest $620 million and hire 2,000 new workers in Michigan while building its IPTV network.

The Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis is reporting that AT&T's IPTV U-verse service may be around the corner for North County residents and businesses. Craig W. Felzien, AT&T's regional director of external affairs, said AT&T will be talking with officials in all of North County's municipalities. Meanwhile, Charter communications is threatening legal action to stop AT&T from moving into the area.

SaskTel, the Saskatchewan-based telecommunications company, will invest CAD118 million (USD100 million) in 2007 to maintain and upgrade its provincial network. CAD12 million of that will be going to build out SaskTel's Max IPTV service to meet customer demand, make ongoing enhancements and add new features such as personal video recorder service.

As part of a five-year CAD310 million program, SaskTel will continue to increase bandwidth by bringing fiber optic cable closer to homes and business. In 2007, the second year of the Next Generation Access Infrastructure (NGAI) program, SaskTel will invest $23 million to continue to increase the bandwidth of SaskTel's access network.

Deutsche Telekom AG intends to establish itself at the top of the international telecommunications market by means of direct focus on customer orientation. This was announced by CEO René Obermann at the 16th Internationales Presse Kolloquium (IPK) 2007 in Berlin. "Service and a service mentality are key components to advance our business, in particular in Germany. Step by step, we intend to make Deutsche Telekom the standard for service in the industry."

Service will be expanded as a decisive element in customer acquisition and customer retention. Deutsche Telekom will tailor its products even more closely to the needs of customer groups, such as families, students or small-business enterprises.

Part of this effort is the goal of offering top quality broadband network access to meet the increasing demand for broadband connections and services both in the fixed-line network as well as in mobile communications.

"Even if we can't solve all problems within twelve months, the customers will increasingly experience a changed Deutsche Telekom," declared Obermann.

Will IPTV become a household name? How can service providers make it attractive for consumers and realize returns on investment? Jayesh Easwaramony, principal consultant at global growth consulting company, Frost & Sullivan, tells us all at an analyst briefing on the Asia Pacific IPTV industry to be held on Thursday, February 8, 2007, 11:00am (GMT +08:00).

Those interested in participating in the web/tele-conference should send an email to Letticia Leopold at letticia.leopold@frost.com with the following information: title of analyst briefing, your full name, media/company name, title, telephone number, e-mail address and country. Upon receipt of the above information, the registration, weblink, dial-in number and pass code details for the live briefing will be emailed to you.

Convergin announced that its Accolade WCS Service Capability Interaction Management (SCIM) product, now enables the integration of IPTV and telecom services in converged networks. Wireless, wireline, and cable operators, can horizontally integrate IPTV services with their current service offerings, and control the way these services interact. This enables service providers to deliver a quadruple-play user experience.

PCCW is deploying Harmonic's new DiviCom Electra 5400 standard definition (SD) MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) encoders for its entire now TV channel lineup. The expansion enables PCCW, the world's largest IPTV operator with more than 700,000 subscribers, to add services and extend its reach in Hong Kong.

Pre-registered attendees already top 1,000 for the IPTV World Forum in London

The rapid emergence of IPTV as a genuine revenue-generating new application for network operators in Europe and beyond, is helping to fuel record levels of interest and attendance in this year's IPTV World Forum.

The total number of IPTV households will grow dramatically over the next five years, rising from just under 6 million homes worldwide in 2006 to more than 80 million in 2011, predicts a new report from the technology research firm, Strategy Analytics. The report, "Global IPTV Forecast: Homes, Users and Subscribers," finds that many "subscribers" to IPTV will not be paying directly for TV programming or services, but will use IPTV free-of-charge as part of a package of bundled broadband services. This report predicts that the number of households worldwide paying for IPTV services will rise from 3.3 million in 2006 to 40.9 million in 2011.

Alexander Cameron shares his views in "Cutting Off the Air Supply" on Narrowstep, Joost/The Venice Project, and BT's business of DSL backhauling.

To us, this paper was of quite interest both for Alex's industry insight into BT and the UK's DSL economics but also for his viewpoint on Joost and its hurdles.

While we have remained quiet with our viewpoints on Joost during beta-testing, our feelings are much like Mr. Cameron's in that Joost will present bandwidth issues for users and must win some significant content deals before becoming anything as ground breaking as Skype or Kazaa. Then again, were Skype and Kazaa really ground breaking or were they mere pedestals created by the media and large acquisitions?

Round three of this media grandstanding may be upon us with article headlines stating "Internet TV Has Finally Arrived."

Really?

Minus the serious bandwidth issue facing Joost, one would find it very hard to believe that Joost will be the "best of both the internet and TV worlds" unless they can sign on the entertainment or sports industry. If Joost can't produce some significant content agreements in these fields and others, then it becomes a software-based YouTube with a smaller bandwidth bill.

Now onto Alex's paper...

TANDBERG Television announced with business partner Balum Ltd. that its IPTV video headend and MPEG-4 AVC encoders have been selected by EPM Telecommunications UNE to deploy the first IPTV service in Colombia, South America. As a leading provider of Internet, VoIP and television services to this market, EPM's new IPTV service will be part of its competitive triple play package. The company will leverage the TANDBERG iPlex Video Headend Platform to provide Colombian viewers with more than 100 real-time channels and video-on-demand movies.

IPTV-Americas has selected the Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS) to provide digital video content security throughout its digital video network. IPTV Americas is currently running trials of its turnkey IPTV solution with telecommunications carriers in Latin America and plans a full-scale launch in 2007. Visitors to the IPTV World Forum in Rio de Janeiro can visit Verimatrix at booth #2 and IPTV Americas at booth #11 to hear more details.

NDS announced two new product enhancements of Synamedia Metro, the NDS IPTV middleware solution. Distributed-DVR and ShareTV are two patent pending product features which will deliver even more to IPTV service providers who choose Synamedia Metro to protect and enhance their business. The middleware and content protection attributes of NDS Synamedia Metro combined with the power of Jungo's Open RG software, bring peer-to-peer video sharing and distributed DVR capabilities to IPTV operators.

Time Broadband Services Pvt. Ltd., an IPTV service provider in India, and Amino Communications Ltd have announced a commercial deal to manufacture AmiNET125 H.264 AVC (MPEG-4, Part 10) compliant Set-Top Boxes (STBs), for the Indian market, through Time Broadband's overseas associate company, Dimensions Broadband UK. The substantial contract, with initial Fixed License fee & on-going Royalty arrangement with Amino, marks their expansion within emerging markets of the Indian sub-continent.

Optibase Ltd. has installed the Baltic's first turnkey MPEG4 IPTV solution for Lattelecom, Latvia's leading provider of information technology and telecommunications services.

Optibase will provide an end-to-end IPTV solution enabling Lattelecom to supply interactive TV services based on MPEG-4 H.264 technology. In addition to streaming live TV channels, Lattelecom DSL users can form personal program sets, order TV shows and movies, create personal archives, select languages and to use internet and voice communications.

Brasil Telecom has chosen Widevine Technologies to protect its IP video service. Scheduled to launch in phases, the service enables subscribers to view a variety of Hollywood content and local programming on set top boxes, home media gateways and, eventually, PCs.