An industry summit in London will provide a unique forum to discuss some of the critical issues facing media companies and network operators as a result of new online and mobile broadband services.

The focus of the second annual Broadband Connect Summit is "Enabling fixed and wireless networks for broadband media services". The conference will include senior speakers and representatives from global brands including BT, BBC Worldwide, Virgin Media, Alcatel-Lucent, Admob and Disney.

Existing online and mobile network infrastructure is being stretched by the increasing demand for rich media services. Next generation networks promise to bring new entertainment services to the home and the handset but will require significant investment by operators.

With significant growth in the Chinese market, the forecasts for User-Generated Video use and revenue have shifted upward since last year, reports In-Stat. And with expectations of higher quality content and increasing file size maximums, the demands on bandwidth will likely continue to grow at a faster rate than the number of files/videos served, the high-tech market research firm says.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• Total worldwide UGV revenue is expected to eclipse US$1.19 billion by 2012.
• 160 billion UGV served videos are forecasted for 2012.
• Individuals who use mobile phones to participate in online video sites are most likely to contribute to the market.

StumbleUpon announces the addition of six new content providers to StumbleVideo, including: College Humor, Funny or Die, Vimeo, Dailymotion, veoh.com and vbs.tv. These six new sites are added to StumbleUpon's current list of content providers including YouTube, Google, MySpace and Metacafe.

Launched in December 2006, StumbleVideo discovers videos based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more. Each video on StumbleVideo has been discovered and rated by StumbleUpon's fast growing community of 5 million users.

AT&T's U-verse IPTV is the first video service provider to commit to operating under the new ENERGY STAR program for video providers. As an ENERGY STAR participant, AT&T will provide U-verse TV customers with Motorola and Cisco Systems Inc. receivers that meet the new ENERGY STAR efficiency criteria well in advance of Jan. 1, 2009, when it goes into effect. U-verse IPTV receivers offer increased energy efficiency compared with other digital set-top boxes today. ENERGY STAR is a voluntary program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy that sets strict energy-efficiency specifications and promotes qualified products to help American consumers reduce their carbon footprint and save money.

PBS has chosen thePlatform to power its new online video initiative that will significantly increase the amount of PBS video available on both pbs.org and local PBS station web sites. PBS will use thePlatform, to publish and manage its national broadband video programming on its web sites, including pbs.org, pbskids.org, pbsparents.org, and pbsteachers.org. The agreement also allows PBS to enable online video distribution of national programming to PBS member stations and their respective Web sites. In addition, local PBS stations will have access to thePlatform's publishing system and video player technology to publish locally-produced content to their individual Web sites and to make it available to other local PBS stations.

The new worldwide IPTV Forecast from MRG, the only bi-annual IPTV report based on over 600 IPTV Operators worldwide in over 70 countries, confirms that the increased revenues of Telcos and IPTV Operators remain in positive financial territory, and are not negatively impacted by the global turmoil in the credit, oil and housing sectors. The new forecast, based on most recently verified subscriber and revenue growth data, shows IPTV subscribers growing from 24.4 million to 92.8 million 2008-2012; and service revenue totaling $37.1 billion by 2012, with CapEx growing to $5.5 billion. While Europe's subscriber size in 2012 will remain dominant, Asia's subscriber base will nearly equal Europe's in 2012, followed by North America.

USTelematics announces the launch of a new mobilecast program called 4VDO that delivers live television and other video programming to USTelematics’ Voyager Mobile IPTV and also to 3G and 4G wireless mobile devices of most kinds, including the new WiMax devices and services coming soon from Sprint, Google, Intel and their partners.

As new WiMax services proliferate, such as those to become widely available in the recently announced Sprint, Clearwire, Google, and Intel joint venture, USTelematics expects to become a key player in getting WiMax deployed en masse.

comScore releases March 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, indicating that U.S. Internet users viewed 11.5 billion online videos during the month, representing a 13-percent gain versus February and a 64-percent gain versus March 2007.

Google Sites Extends Lead in Online Video Market Share

In March, Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with more than 4.3 billion videos viewed (38 percent share of all videos), gaining 2.6 share points versus the previous month. YouTube.com accounted for 98 percent of all videos viewed at Google Sites. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 477 million videos (4.2 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 328 million (2.9 percent) and Viacom Digital with 249 million (2.2 percent).

In the past five years, IPTV has grown from a handful of deployments by a few pioneering telcos and ISPs to an established part of the pay-TV landscape with services spanning the globe from Australia to the Ukraine. But now, according to ABI Research, this “adolescent” industry must find ways to create a distinct identity so it can continue to grow and prosper, with IPTV operators creating unique service offerings that are differentiated from the traditional video services of their key competitors.

SeaChange announces Axiom On Demand 5.0, the only open VOD content delivery platform to bring social networking, time-shifting, advanced advertising and gaming to television. Shaped by billions of on-demand streams delivered for cable and IPTV television operators, Axiom 5.0 will be demonstrated for the first time at the Cable Show in New Orleans. Breakthroughs including Affinity, ReStart TV, and Game Now Lite are just three of the new add-on applications that best embody Axiom On Demand’s innovation, and its ability to ensure viewer loyalty and new revenue streams.

AT&T and USA Diving announce that the 2008 AT&T USA Diving Grand Prix will air on a tape delay on the AT&T blue room beginning in mid-May. Footage from the four-day event, which kicks off in Fort Lauderdale on May 8, will also be available at no extra charge to AT&T U-verse IPTV customers via AT&T Team USA On Demand in late May.

The AT&T blue room and AT&T Team USA On Demand keep fans connected to Team USA with webcasts and footage of events, plus exclusive interviews with U.S. Olympic Team hopefuls. The blue room and AT&T Team USA On Demand currently feature U.S. Olympic hopeful diver Troy Dumais in the latest AT&T Tips and Training program episode — an original production that provides fans access to sport-specific training tips from several elite U.S. Olympic Team hopefuls. Showcasing U.S. Olympic hopefuls is part of AT&T's role as an official sponsor for USA Diving to provide financial support, products and services to aid in the training of America's divers.

Orb Networks announces the world's first way to stream live TV to the iPhone and iPod touch. For the first time, iPhone users can enjoy the immediacy of live sporting events and fast-breaking news on their phone.

"TV on the iPhone is now real," said Joe Costello, CEO of Orb Networks. "Steve Jobs may think that buying shows from iTunes is the same as watching TV, but iPhone users know better. When the NBA playoffs are on, you want to see the game, live, wherever you are. Free."

Orb was the first company to enable the live streaming of TV from users' homes to almost any mobile phone with a streaming player and a web browser. To get around the iPhone's extreme limitations on supported video formats, Orb created a special application, OrbLive, to enable the streaming of any video format to iPhones.

Screen Digest examines the market for pay TV in 12 Central and Eastern European countries, and Russia. Eastern European Pay Television reveals that, driven by continued strong growth in both cable and satellite markets, total pay TV penetration will increase rapidly in the region from 40 per cent at the end of 2007 to 60 per cent by 2012 with a total of 63m homes subscribing to pay TV services. This impressive growth will be driven by a strong pay TV market in Russia which will account for 28m of the region’s pay TV subscribers by 2012.

Since 2004 the CEE country economies and Russia have enjoyed rapid expansion, growing at more than double the rate of markets in Western Europe. 2007 saw the market growing at its fastest rate, with 18 percent growth of total pay TV subscribers.

Yankee Group announces that there is a significant shift taking place in the advertising industry—cable and IPTV operators will lose out to internet video platforms in the competition for the incremental ad revenue that supports investments in interactive television. By the time cable and IPTV operators will be able to deliver interactivity to a large number of households, content owners and advertisers will have already made long-term interactive platform investments online.

According to the recently published Yankee Group Report, The High-Water Mark for Interactive Cable, digital and interactive advertising is the cornerstone for the infrastructure investments necessary to support interactive programming. Cable networks will continue to command large linear audiences and above-the-line advertising revenue, but cable operators will be limited in their ability to deliver interactive experiences that can compete with internet video.

HomePNA announces that the 5 millionth HomePNA 3.1 chipset has now shipped, up from 2 million less than six months ago. The shipments demonstrate the high demand for HomePNA multimedia home networking devices in IPTV service deployments.

HomePNA is being deployed by dozens of telephone companies worldwide including AT&T, Aliant in Canada, and Sonaecom in Portugal. With almost 30 certified products, HomePNA offers service providers more certified products that operate over coaxial cable than any other standard.