Internet Protocol Television or what AT&T calls “infinite channel TV” is high quality (including HDTV) audio / video streamed through a subscriber’s internet line.  It’s how the phone company plans on selling you TV in the near future.  The idea has been around for some time but it seems the industry is preparing to give birth to the new media later this year.  It will soon give those complacent old Cable TV companies some much needed competition from an even older bunch, the phone companies.  Add television services to the list that includes cell phones, IP telephony and internet access - all area where the two data lines compete.  

Last Tuesday Ed Whitacre the “in your face” Chairman and CEO “extreme” of AT&T gave bold declarations regarding AT&T’s plans in this new arena.  The venerable telecom provider is dropping billions into widening the data lines that currently provide its customers with phone and DSL service.  Much wider lines are needed to bring households television entertainment which is very bandwidth intensive.  It’s going to be a steep hill to climb for the telecom companies to develop the infrastructure necessary for IPTV but AT&T seems to have taken an aggressive lead with Ed Whitacre at the helm.  In his statement he talked of “changing the game” for consumers who are trapped by Cable TV companies.    

CEA presents the Five Principals IPTV

• Nationwide compatibility
• Open standards
• Reasonable licensing terms
• Reasonable testing and certification
• Reasonable terms of service for customers 

At last week’s Consumer Electronics Association’s Entertainment Technology Policy Summit in Washington DC, the CEA, AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon announced their “Five Principals” for IPTV.  The principals are an effort to assure the industry that it doesn’t want IPTV technologies to fragment into competing standards and practices.  It’s a good step toward unifying the hardware that will soon be pouring into the IPTV market from competing consumer electronics manufacturers. 

I really hope the competition to Cable TV will mean that someday I don’t have to buy a whole package of channels I don’t want to get the one channel I do want.  And why do we have to buy a whole channel full of time I’m not watching it anyway.  IPTV would seem like a great segue into even more potent On Demand services.  I should be able to subscribe to individual TV shows and movies not a whole network.  Just because I like the show 24 doesn’t mean I want to watch anything else on Fox.  Why not allow me to subscribe to that show only?  Fox makes a percentage based on the content I want.  When the new episode available I should be able to watch it through the cable / phone provider’s own menu system because it’s stored remotely instead of on my PVR.