IPTV Inferno

Ted Shelton (who has landed sponsorship for his blog!) has two interesting posts on the rise of IPTV in 2005. The second is an interview with Brian Sugar, the marketing VP of 2Wire, in the wake of yesterday's SBC announcement, and he has some frank observations that one probably wouldn't hear coming out of the SBC PR department. It is also interesting to note that BT (the other Yahoo! co-branded DSL partner) gets name-checked in the piece, as one of 2Wire's alliance members, all of whom Mr. Sugar says the company is "pitching with a satellite partner." In the UK this means BSkyB, of course, and frankly I have a hard time seeing it. The one distinguishing factor that sets the UK apart from the other alliance member markets is the presence of a rapidly-growing DTT platform. In other words, BT needs Sky a hell of a lot less than SBC needs the Dish network, and presumably it can achieve much of what it wants to do in the TV space, a lot more cheaply (and with more control), via incorporating Freeview rather than teaming up with Sky. I could be wrong, but it doesn't feel consistent somehow. I also expect the regulator would frown on such a deep tie-up, in any event.