riffjim4069
06-07-2006, 10:17 AM
Source (http://www.multichannel.com/)
Telcos will eventually win the battle over video franchising now being fought in state legislatures and the U.S. Congress, and that will lead to accelerated IPTV deployments and increased set-top-box sales, according to a new analysis from ABI Research.
The analysis noted that telcos have been successful in arguing that their IPTV services are not video services falling under old cable-TV-franchise rules, but rather broadband services delivering video. With that, they also have succeeded in winning blanket franchise regulations from several states, with Texas, Colorado, Louisiana, South Carolina and New Jersey having passed or considering such statewide-franchise arrangements, even as a federal video-franchise bill works its way through the U.S. Congress.
"We are at the cusp of a strong run-up in IPTV-subscriber bases over the next year or two," principal analyst Michael Arden said. "The telcos have sympathy at the higher levels of government and, in general, the principles of encouraging competition and preventing monopoly mean that the telcos will be victorious in this battle. It's just a question of when."
Local governments and cable operators have opposed these moves, claiming loss of revenue and local control of cable service. They also argued that telcos will “red-line” -- the practice of rolling out services only to affluent areas to gather the highest revenue return. While that is prohibited under federal equal-access regulations -- and telcos have denied the practice -- Arden noted that when AT&T Inc. was first planning its U-Verse IPTV deployments, it based much of its market selection strategy on which markets would generate the highest average revenue per user.
Telcos will eventually win the battle over video franchising now being fought in state legislatures and the U.S. Congress, and that will lead to accelerated IPTV deployments and increased set-top-box sales, according to a new analysis from ABI Research.
The analysis noted that telcos have been successful in arguing that their IPTV services are not video services falling under old cable-TV-franchise rules, but rather broadband services delivering video. With that, they also have succeeded in winning blanket franchise regulations from several states, with Texas, Colorado, Louisiana, South Carolina and New Jersey having passed or considering such statewide-franchise arrangements, even as a federal video-franchise bill works its way through the U.S. Congress.
"We are at the cusp of a strong run-up in IPTV-subscriber bases over the next year or two," principal analyst Michael Arden said. "The telcos have sympathy at the higher levels of government and, in general, the principles of encouraging competition and preventing monopoly mean that the telcos will be victorious in this battle. It's just a question of when."
Local governments and cable operators have opposed these moves, claiming loss of revenue and local control of cable service. They also argued that telcos will “red-line” -- the practice of rolling out services only to affluent areas to gather the highest revenue return. While that is prohibited under federal equal-access regulations -- and telcos have denied the practice -- Arden noted that when AT&T Inc. was first planning its U-Verse IPTV deployments, it based much of its market selection strategy on which markets would generate the highest average revenue per user.