"In addition to paid subscriptions, millions of broadband households are regularly utilizing free Internet voice services from companies such as Skype, which recently reported 171 million registered users at the end of 2006, up nearly 100 million from a year earlier."
According to the TIA, 9.9 percent of all landlines in the U.S. were VoIP lines in 2006, and this will increase to 34.1 percent by 2010.
"Requiring considerably more bandwidth and technical know-how from service providers, IPTV is still in its infancy worldwide," says Mr. Macklin. "Nevertheless, it is on track to reshape a number of major industries."
Three areas are important for IPTV to grow and succeed, bandwidth, a workable regulatory environment and favorable TV market dynamics.
Currently France is the only country with over a million IPTV subscribers, so meeting the three requirements could be challenging.
"As a result," says Mr. Macklin, "unlike VoIP, which is likely to be universally attractive to broadband households, the growth of IPTV will be patchy across the globe."
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