Some insight into the state of the Telco vs. MSO convergence battle offered by Light Reading Senior Analyst Adi Kishore:

Telcos are having some success with IPTV deployments, Verizon is close to becoming a top 10 provider.
- Advantage in clean slate, ability to lay new fiber.
- Disadvantage is going up against established MSOs.

Cable is having greater success rolling out VoIP services
- Advantage is that they are well-established, large number of multi-service subscribers.
- Downside is the legacy infrastructure.

Kishore showed a “back of envelope” analysis of the potential incremental value derived from next-gen advertising. Pegged the potential increase due to addressable / VOD / Enhanced advertising at a 46% over traditional linear means.

Mitch Oscar, Executive VP & Director, Carat added some insight on Project Canoe
“We know more about what it’s not than what it is.” The cable operators that generate $5b-$6b in ad revenue and $60b in subscription revenues, all have legacy box issues, it takes time to build out new boxes, maybe we could build out a system…integrated across the 30m digital homes right now.

Cable networks and Cable operators - “poor form of coopertition.” In the future there might be this relationship where they create some inventory where the combine local and national for increased effectiveness. In some cases there may be a cable network that has national advertiser relationships, if the national advertiser wants to have a relationship we can start to grow that out locally.

“And we have very few metrics.” Historical set-top box viewing, aggregated set-top boxes forming segmentation pockets…scale and representation could bring national money to local coffers.

A year ago at this time I was splitting time between Light Reading’s Future of Broadband conference and Streaming Media East. I barely covered the conference at the time because it was so technical, laden with acronyms like GPON, EPON and FTTH, but I came away with the following thoughts:

We aren’t there yet but networks are moving toward smart gateways and routers that will personalize the digital media experience for each user across platforms and standards.

The future is a universal cross-platform personalized media experience allowing users to consume content on any device combined with relevant advertising based on their history.

Last year’s conference focused on video as the future of broadband because as Light Reading Chief Analyst Graham Finnie put it this morning “it’s a much more flexible means to deliver video.”

This year, Finnie spoke more about the two way experiences that can be delivered (think applications) as well as the emergence of mobile broadband. Video has not taken a back seat, but it’s no longer the end all of broadband.

Above: Broadband Penetration, EOY 2007 (Source: LightReading)