Digital Lifescapes

IDC predicts that regulation around net neutrality will be decided in favor of facilities-based broadband service providers like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast -- in a decisive move by the combined telecom and big media lobbyists who are are actively shaping U.S. government policy. IDC believes that keeping the Internet free from net neutrality regulation will ultimately benefit large scale Internet incumbents like Google, eBay, and Amazon. Here's their rationale. Core to the net neutrality debate is the issue of control and monetization of broadband networks by facilities-based broadband providers, according to IDC. In contrast, I believe that the real issue is big media companies maintaining their "gatekeeper" influence, with a perpetuated status quo that favors both a bias of perspective and a scarcity of alternative opinion. Led by an explosion in Internet video, IDC forecasts that the U.S. consumer Internet generated IP traffic is going to be three times heavier in

Game advertising spending in the U.S. will grow from $370 million in 2006 to more than $2 billion in 2012, according to a new report entitled "Electronic Gaming in the Digital Home: Game Advertising," from Parks Associates. Over that time, game advertising will achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33 percent, much higher than that of other major advertising media, including TV, radio, print, and the Internet. "Advertising in electronic games had an average monthly household expenditure of less than 50 cents in 2006, while broadcast TV was at $37, meaning advertisers are not using the gaming medium to its full potential," said Yuanzhe (Michael) Cai, director of broadband and gaming, at Parks Associates. "If executed correctly, game advertising can provide a win-win solution for advertisers, developers and publishers, console manufacturers, game portals, and gamers." In-game advertising will experience the highest growth rate among the various cat

The iPhone from Apple launches today with a level of anticipation rarely witnessed in the consumer electronics industry. According to a new market study, following the first wave of early-adopters will be additional clusters of pent-up demand to sustain ongoing sales. While fifteen percent of online Americans between the ages of 13 and 64 say they are at least somewhat likely to buy the iPhone and one percent are absolutely certain they will, only four percent of those at least somewhat likely to buy the iPhone say they plan on getting it as soon as it becomes available. More than half (55 percent) of those who are somewhat likely to buy say they will wait for a price drop and 49 percent say they will wait to learn about the user reviews. These are some of the results of research conducted online by Harris Interactive among 10,410 online consumers ages 13 to 64 between May 8 and 23, 2007. At the time of this survey, 38 percent of online 13 to 64 year olds said that they were at least s

The most productive times, when communications are critical, are often spent indoors. This reality, as well as increasing usage of 3G wireless data services, is creating a growing demand for better in-building wireless coverage, according to a report from ABI Research. ABI's estimates that more than 180,000 buildings will utilize in-building wireless systems by 2011. According to principal analyst Dan Shey, "The combination of supply-side enablers -- 3G networks, handsets with advanced capabilities, mobile applications -- with a strong customer need means operators will be focused on establishing a coverage footprint inside buildings to retain customers who are using mobile data services. We expect this market to show a compound annual growth rate of nearly 20 percent by 2011." Until now, carriers have focused on extending coverage from the macro network into buildings, but with 3G networks, that approach will have limited results for customers using data services that de

Mobile operators will experience increasing struggles trying to hold onto their customers, according to a new global market study by Strategy Analytics. On a global basis, the rate of subscriber churn posted its ninth consecutive quarter of annual growth, reaching 2.5 percent per month in Q1 2007. The main culprit for this increase is mobile service provider subscriber volatility in emerging markets. This quarterly report provides a health check for the wireless operator community, tracking the operational and financial performance of 125 individual operators, accounting for 75 percent of the world's cellular users. The report found that churn was relatively stable in Europe and North America, but continued to increase in Asia-Pacific, Central and Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. "Subscriber registration and re-verification procedures have highlighted the challenge of real subscriber growth in a number of emerging markets over the last few quarters," comments Ph

The Apple iPhone may find strong demand among early-adopter technophiles, but building a larger market may be difficult initially, according to a new white paper entitled "The iPhone: A Consumer Perspective." from Parks Associates. The document includes primary consumer data from their market study entitled "Mobile Entertainment Platforms & Services (Second Edition)," a 2007 survey of 2,000 U.S. Internet users. The survey finds only 3 percent of these consumers have a strong interest in purchasing the iPhone at its $499.99 price point, combined with a new two-year mobile service contract. "The underlying drivers for converging music, multimedia, and communications capabilities in a device such as an iPhone are certainly prevalent in today's market," said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst with Parks Associates. "However, the high price point may prevent the iPhone from achieving greater adoption over the short term. It may be an

E-wallet phones, GPS phones and related services are gaining traction today in the Japanese mobile phone market, according to the latest report from In-Stat. Mobile TV phones are expected to gain favor as well, once there is a good revenue-generating business case, the high-tech market research firm says. A leading global trend-setting market, Japan provides a model for how other markets may adopt new mobile phone features. "In the advanced Japanese mobile phone market, the shipment of 3G phones exceeded 92 percent of 47.8 million phones sold in 2006," says Allyn Hall, a Director with In-Stat. "The market is full of excitement as phones with brilliant displays, rich multimedia capabilities and various novel functions were introduced last year to gain customer acceptance and market share." The In-Stat report entitled "3G Mobile Handset Trends in Japan" covers the market for mobile phones in Japan. Getting to know the latest features of Japanese phones and h

By 2011, consumers will be spending in excess of 50 percent more on entertainment content than they did last year, but it likely won't be for using the same content via different media, according to a new industry report by Understanding & Solutions. The upsurge of content, combined with much-improved delivery infrastructures, is increasingly allowing consumers to choose when, where and how they consume their entertainment. Recent industry activity and the take-up of home video, TV, music and gaming across multiple delivery platforms are already laying the foundations for significant growth in the sector, particular through three key categories. - Home Video and TV : electronic sell-through and online VoD, linear programming, TV based video-on-demand (VoD), mobile TV and theatrical box office. - Music : online, mobile, and subscription radio. - Gaming : online and mobile gaming. "Going forward, we'll see the highest percentage growth coming from mobile and online,&quo

comScore released a study from its "comScore Video Metrix" service of U.S. video streaming activity at a selection of up-and-coming video sharing sites. The study examined six video-sharing sites that did not make comScore’s ranking of the top ten U.S. video properties for the month and reveals that French site Dailymotion.com had a particularly strong position in the U.S. video-sharing market in April 2007. Dailymotion.com has taken hold in the U.S., drawing more than 4.7 million video streamers in April. The average video streamer at Dailymotion.com viewed more than 10 videos and nearly one hour of video content in the month. Metacafe.com also generated substantial activity, as 3.7 million streamers viewed 33 million video streams, while Break.com saw 3.1 million streamers view 32 million video streams. Veoh.com, which attracted the smallest video-viewing audience of the group, had the highest level of user engagement with more than 104 minutes per streamer, benefiting fr

According to the latest market study by In-Stat, 2007 is shaping up to be the year that mapping and navigation applications truly arrive on mobile handsets. For approximately $10 per month, handset navigation offers similar, if not superior, functionality to Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs), at a lower price, the high-tech market research firm says. "With a clear, targeted business strategy that focuses on capturing potential PND buyers, wireless service providers have an opportunity to capture market share from PND manufacturers," says Stephanie Ethier, In-Stat analyst. I recall that a prior U.S. market study, performed by another research company, determined that personal navigation capabilities was the most requested feature desired by consumers who were considering switching mobile phone service providers, and upgrading to a new handset. Ironically, of all the wireless mobile service provider direct-mail marketing materials that I've received recently, I don't r

Africa is the fastest-growing region in the global mobile phone services market. Cellular connections passed 200 million in the first quarter of 2007 to reach a penetration rate of around 21 percent, reveals Wireless Intelligence -- the joint venture between Ovum and the GSM Association. "Strong opportunities for growth are expected in the various sub-regions of Africa -- although the Southern region is showing signs of maturity" says Joss Gillet, Senior Analyst at Wireless Intelligence. Orascom, Millicom, Celtel, MTN and Vodacom are competing strongly in such markets, where network coverage and regulation remain challenging. In 2006, a market growth of 45 percent positioned Africa as the fastest-growing region, ahead of the Middle East (30 percent) and Asia-Pacific (28 percent). The growth in cellular connections is being driven mainly by the deployment of GSM networks and changes in market dynamics in terms of regulation and politics. In 2007, they expect market growth to b

Strategy Analytics released its latest "camera phone" market evaluation which concludes that the installed base of mobile phones that incorporate a camera will exceed One Billion units in 2007, as mature market replacement sales above one megapixel and emerging market first digital camera phone purchases (typically VGA) continue to drive sales. Neil Mawston, Associate Director and Chief Mobile Imaging Analyst, commented, "Camera phones have been a huge success, with unit sales rising from three million in 2001 to 500 million last year. As CCD continues to lose the sensor wars in the mobile space, Micron, Omnivision and other CMOS vendors have been the prime beneficiaries." David Kerr, Vice President of the Global Wireless Practice, added, "The camera phone market is now entering its third phase where the focus will move from Megapixel and basic image enablement to the quality of the imaging experience. In North America, and Western Europe, One Megapixel devices

With technology market research firms such as Gartner, 451 Group and Current Analysis already advising their clients against allowing the Apple iPhone into their enterprise network environment, other researchers are eager to issue their own warnings. The list price of the new device and the cost of switching mobile phone service providers may dampen the demand for Apple's iPhone, according to the analyst interpretation of the results from a new survey conducted by IDC. The survey of online mobile phone shoppers, conducted by IDC and Market Insight Corp., found that while a majority of the respondents -- nearly 60 percent of a sample of 456 individuals -- were interested in the iPhone, they were unlikely to buy one anytime soon owing to the cost of the device and the potential cost of switching carriers. "While the allure of owning the next 'cool' device will undoubtedly have early adopters -- and die-hard Apple fans -- queuing up to get the iPhone regardless of the pri

According to In-Stat's latest in-depth assessment, the U.S. and European telecom markets are diverging at a rapid pace. In Europe, regulatory policies force incumbent operators to manage their network infrastructure separately from their retail services. Next-generation network facilities, even fiber-to-the-home connections, are available to all competitors on an equal basis. The result is thriving competition in most consumer market segments. In 2006, European incumbent operators lost a combined 10 million fixed-line subscribers. During the year, over 14 million consumer households converted to VoIP, with the incumbent operators adding nearly 3 million VoIP subscribers. This is what substantive innovation can do, and it's what real competition does to change the status quo -- more choice, and lower prices. Across Europe there is a growing sense of urgency, in terms of building next-generation networks, introducing new services and winning the customer's preference. The urg

Half of the mobile operators in Western Europe recorded annual falls in voice revenues in the first quarter of 2007, as revenue growth in the region as a whole stalls. According to the new Strategy Analytics report entitled "Wireless Operator Performance Benchmarking, Q1 2007," revenues per minute from wireless voice fell 12 percent last quarter as regulatory pressure and competition continue to impact growth. This Strategy Analytics quarterly report provides a health check for the wireless operator community, tracking the operational and financial performance of 125 individual operators, accounting for 75 percent of the world's cellular users. The report found that voice revenues fell by a massive 9 percent at Vodafone Germany, with operators in many other West European markets experiencing more modest declines. Operators in Spain performed best in the region, with voice revenue growth ranging from 6 percent at Orange to 11 percent at Vodafone. "Mobile operators acr

To the current or potential user of a complicated mobile smartphone, the promise of a user-friendly Apple iPhone is a welcomed development. To a corporate chief information officer (CIO) who leans towards the legacy "command and control" mindset, the iPhone is potentially yet another renegade user-initiated revolt that must be contained or quashed. However, I would caution all highly-strung CIOs to think carefully before engaging in this battle. We know that the average tenure of the typical U.S. CIO has decreased, and they often lose their jobs because they confront a peer executive that has funded independent technology projects that were not mandated by the CIO and their staff. More often than not, when the dust has settled, the CIO is the one that's shown the door. Why do so many CIOs follow this path? It's partly because they don't truly view their user clusters as internal "customers" who must be "served" -- but it's also due to a no

MySpace users are chronically unfaithful, according to a new Parks Associates market study that focused on members of the online social networking communities. The implications to consumer marketers, and their advertising agencies, are significant. Nearly 40 percent of MySpace users keep profiles on other social networking sites such as Friendster and Facebook. Loyalty among the smaller social networking sites is even lower, with more than 50 percent of all users actively maintaining multiple profiles. These trends highlight a peculiar aspect of the market for social networking services. Nearly half of all social networkers regularly use more than one site; one in six use three or more. The result is an increasingly interlinked environment tied together by links, widgets, and the users themselves. "MySpace is a growing ecosystem and one that ironically now extends beyond MySpace itself," said John Barrett, the lead author of the Parks report, "Web 2.0 and the New Net.&q

Cable operators have traditionally regarded node-splitting -- the addition of more capacity to existing cable network nodes -- with fear and loathing. Now, according to ABI Research, some of them may have to bite the bullet. But for those providers offering advanced services such as high-definition TV, there are rewards as well. Some cable operators, following demand, have built out their networks piecemeal, without much regard for the long-term capacity of the nodes which form an integral part of the cable plant. The result: in some neighborhoods -- particularly in North America and Western Europe, where the strong growth phase of cable networks is over -- nodes are unevenly distributed relative to population. That in turn means some customers are getting better service than others. "Cable companies want to distribute nodes -- each serving a number of households -- as evenly as possible throughout their networks, so that there are similar numbers of homes being supported on each

The Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Strategies team says that they applaud the decision by Verizon Wireless to expand the utility of mobile phones with the announcement of an m-payment service enabled as a BREW application from technology partner Obopay. Mobile payments and mobile commerce applications have been in use for several years, with pioneering approaches from Japan and South Korea enabling cashless transactions for train tickets, taxis, soda machines, parking meters and even restaurant bills. In contrast, carriers in the North American market have been slow to embrace these e-commerce related opportunities. Phil Taylor, Director of the Wireless Media Strategies Service, commented, "In our December 2006 report, we predicted significant activity in the form of payment and ticketing trials towards the end of 2007 and maintain our projected outlook of $36 billion in spending via contactless payment interfaces on mobile phones by 2011. Today's announcement confirms our

WiMAX networks in Europe are being deployed in most countries using spectrum at 3.5 GHz. However these are mostly confined to offering fixed wireless services. The mobile version of WiMAX (IEEE802.16e-2005) is also being deployed at 3.5 GHz and has been trialed in The Netherlands using 2.6 GHz spectrum. This latter is earmarked as the UMTS extension band for 3G operators to use. According to ABI Research, the European Commission and several progressive national regulators -- including Norway, Sweden, and the UK -- want the situation to change, as does the WiMAX Forum. The ITU has now also agreed that OFDM-based technologies should be included in the IMT2000 standard. This will place mobile WiMAX on the same footing as 3G mobile when it comes to using the 3G extension bands and, potentially, existing 3G bands. Several industry analysts now believe that European 3G carriers are deeply troubled by these developments, and recent comments by GSMA board members that they're really not co

Enea and Kontron jointly announced the "IPTV Experience" -- a global, broad-based industry initiative created to address the major design, technology and business challenges impeding widespread adoption of IPTV services. Kicking off this initiative during NXTcomm, Enea and Kontron will host a number of activities including a panel discussion moderated by Steven Hawley from the at Multimedia Research Group (MRG). Participating companies in this panel include Intel Corp and RADVISION. "Our recent research estimates that there will be 63.6 million IPTV subscribers by 2011, and they will demand the highest Quality of Experience (QoE) in order to remain loyal," said Steve Hawley, senior IPTV analyst at MRG. "Industry initiatives like IPTV Experience provide a unified and systemic view of the complex IPTV ecosystem, helping to ensure the highest-quality implementations to support subscriber demands." The IPTV Experience initiative provides guidance, information

The early success of WiMAX in emerging markets is crucial to ensuring the long-term prospects for the technology, according to a new report from Senza Fili Consulting entitled "WiMAX: Ambitions and reality. A detailed market assessment and forecast at the global, regional and country level (2006-2012)." The gradual introduction of portability and mobility in fixed deployments and the performance improvement from MIMO will establish WiMAX as a mature technology and enable it to more effectively compete against LTE. Eventually the best growth prospects for WiMAX are tied to the rollout of mobile services. "The recent inclusion of WiMAX as an IMT-2000 technology will enable mobile operators to deploy it more widely, but the mobile market will take longer than the fixed one to grow, because most mobile operators do not yet need a data-only wireless network to complement their 3G networks," said Monica Paolini, author of the report. By 2012, 61 percent of WiMAX subscribe

Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of "Microsoft Mediaroom," the latest brand name for their Internet Protocol television (IPTV) software platform, featuring several new multimedia capabilities, including in-home personal music and photo sharing, dynamic MultiView (multiple picture-in-picture) capabilities, Multimedia Application Environment for development of interactive services and advanced applications, and digital terrestrial television (DTT) support. However, soon after the announcement, Microsoft was already downplaying the name-change. Telephony magazine published the following executive comments. "We don't know where or how or if it will be used at all," said Christine Heckart, general manager of worldwide marketing for Microsoft TV. "There is no compulsion from us to our users on this," Heckart said. "Our attitude is, use it if it helps you gain subscribers -- don't if it doesn't." They also introduced the Microsoft

Telecoms operators throughout Europe are struggling to find new pockets of meaningful growth in a landscape characterized by maturing markets and declining prices -- for example with voice and SMS. One such pocket of growth is machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions such as fleet management systems, automatic meter reading, and surveillance solutions. An M2M solution brings several benefits to end users, primarily in terms of costs savings, accuracy of data, and improved business processes. IDC forecasts that the European market for M2M solutions (including hardware, software, and services) will grow from $4.4 billion in 2006 to $19.2 billion in 2011, driven primarily by solutions for the enterprise segment. "So far mobile operators have neglected this market due to a legacy ARPU focus. Logically, a SIM card in a remote module does not generate a lot of revenue if it sends one SMS per day with technical data; but it is the total solutions revenue that needs to be in focus," said B

Ipsos believes that municipal wireless Internet access services -- or muni Wi-Fi -- could attract some of today's Internet user population to switch their current ISP to public sector sponsored services that potentially provide broadband wireless access. As part of a wider survey of U.S. adults on technology and communications trends, over one-third of all adult Internet users indicate they would be interested in signing-up for municipal Wi-Fi service -- if and when this service becomes available in the city they currently live -- while interest is highest among those age 18-34, indicating this service may have stronger appeal with the more youthful early-adopter market. The growing availability of municipal Wi-Fi service in the U.S., particularly given the number of municipal Wi-Fi projects being developed for major cities such as Anaheim, Houston, Minneapolis and New Orleans, suggest the days of tethered Internet access are indeed numbered for many Americans, according to the Ips

Digital home product enhancements and increasing marketing investments have resulted in several key custom integration brands moving up the list of preferred installing dealer products, according to new market study. This study, the first joint study from Parks Associates and EH Publishing, identifies Control4 in whole-house automation and lighting control, JVC in microdisplay rear-projection TVs, and both JBL and Polk for in-wall/ceiling speakers as having significantly improved their positions in this channel. "This research documents the fact that certain brands are well-entrenched as the market leaders in their specialty categories," said Daryl Delano, EH Publishing's research director. "Members of the 'Hall of Fame' that consistently measure high rankings for brand familiarity and use include Denon for receivers and amplifiers, Russound for multiroom audio distribution, Monster for A/V wire and cables, Lutron for lighting control, and Crestron for whole-

Internet advertising in the United States continues to be both a major business in the Digital Marketplace, as well as providing the funding for most of the Internet services that consumers use. As U.S. marketers continue moving their available budgets from the traditional media onto the net, IDC forecasts that Internet advertising will grow about three times as fast as advertising overall during the forecast period. The overall revenue of Internet advertising will grow from $16.9 billion in 2006 to $31.3 billion in 2011 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.5 percent. Search advertising will retain its number one position as the advertising format garnering the most ad spend. However, even though absolute spending on search advertising will continue to increase, its market share will slowly decline from 40 percent in 2006 to 32 percent in 2011 as video advertising grows. IDC believes that this decline poses a strategic challenge to Google, the market leader in search advertisi

China Mobile is now the worlds largest mobile phone operator, with more than 296 million subscribers, according to the latest market study by Pyramid Research. It recently inked a deal with Ericsson to expand GSM coverage in 19 regions of China. Moreover, just last week it settled negotiations with China's ZTE Corp to build a high-speed wireless network, opening the door for 3G technologies. The Chinese government has promised to issue licenses for CDMA2000 and WCDMA (the primary U.S. and European 3G mobile-phone standards) in addition to the local Chinese TD-SCDMA standard in time for the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics. Allowing the use of all three standards widens the range of competition. Watching China Mobile firm up these latest deals is no surprise to the market. China Mobile has broken away from the pack in terms of Capex spending, and has been the leader since 2005. In a recently published report, the "Global Mobile Capex Index," Pyramid Research reports that Ch

The rapidly growing Service Delivery Platform (SDP) market, including software and integration services, is forecast to reach $3.5 billion in 2010, according to a new report from Infonetics Research. A growing number of mobile and fixed-line operators are deploying SDPs or incremental services based on existing SDPs to remain competitive with facilities-based competitors, and to stave off competition from Web-based application providers like Google and Yahoo, the report states. Offering new media-rich bundled services like IPTV, video on demand (VoD), video telephony, and fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) is the only way to thrive in the competitive communications environment. All these new services will require significant capex and opex for new hardware components and their integration into existing signaling, OSS, and BSS networks. The solution? According to Infonetics, it's an investment in service delivery platform software and associated integration services. "Getting new

ATIS announced the release of its IPTV High Level Architecture Standard (ATIS-0800007), developed by the ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF). The new document provides a high-level architectural framework to enable end-to-end systems implementation and interoperability for the supporting network design. It serves as a reference architecture for IPTV functional specifications being developed by the IIF. "The High Level Architecture marks a major step in introducing IPTV into homes globally," said Daniel O'Callaghan, IIF Chairman and Principal Member of Technical Staff, at Verizon. "It was a cooperative effort among many of the communications industry's leading service providers and vendors who worked closely together with the common goal of helping IPTV reach its market potential." The standard takes into consideration the architecture scaling from local to regional and national service offerings and identifies the components that will interface with each

comScore announced the launch of their "Widget Metrix" -- a new service to track the usage of widgets across the Web. comScore currently tracks Web widgets, which are data files that can be embedded into a site's HTML code and are typically displayed in a small viewing pane on the website. They are most often used to display customized or personalized content on a Web site, such as to share photos or music recommendations, and are commonly found on blogs, social networking sites and other personalized web pages. "The recent explosion of user-generated content has helped create a worldwide marketplace for widgets," said Linda Boland Abraham, executive vice president at comScore. "We are excited to be providing measurement for this developing content medium." comScore's analysis of the top ten Web widgets worldwide revealed that photo-related widgets dominate the top positions. In April 2007, Slide was the top widget provider with a worldwide reac

Of the more than 360 million digital terrestrial television (DTT) receivers expected to ship in 2013, about a quarter will be found in nontraditional consumer electronics devices. Examples are portable DVD and other media players, and in fixed consumer electronics equipment such as PC TV tuners -- rather than in standard TVs and pay-TV set-top boxes (STB). "Nontraditional devices will form a fast-growing segment of the market for silicon receivers of digital terrestrial video," says principal analyst Steve Wilson of ABI Research. "The small footprint, low power, and low cost of silicon solutions will extend the opportunity for delivering digital broadcast television to consumers. The market will expand from traditional TV and STB applications to other fixed and portable consumer electronics devices." The global DTT market's development patterns will be influenced by regional adoption of broadcast standards. Most developed countries have already settled on one of

A recent survey of U.S. early adopters by In-Stat found that almost half of those respondents planning to replace their current mobile phones want Wi-Fi capability built-in to their new handset. To meet the growing demand, there is an avalanche of dual-mode phones in the pipeline. By the end of this year, the Wi-Fi Alliance will have certified more than 100 different models of combination Wi-Fi and cellular phones. "In the years ahead, dual-mode VoIP-capable phone systems will have increasing competition from other technologies, like femtocells for cellular coverage, but widespread Wi-Fi deployment and the variety of Wi-Fi/cellular handsets offers Wi-Fi/Cellular based systems a significant head-start in the market," says Allen Nogee, In-Stat Principal Analyst. "Other technologies, such as WiMAX and Ultra Wideband, are also poised to enter the handset market, but Wi-Fi fills a unique niche that WiMAX and UWB cannot match." I believe that most of the gadget geeks who

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies from the IT world is already having a significant impact on the way that telecom service providers are planning their next-generation service strategies, leading some telcos to rethink the role that IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) will play in next-generation service creation, according to the latest report from Light Reading. "Content providers are emerging as a serious rival to network operators in the next-generation services arena, and they are working to develop competitive services using completely different approaches than those slowly making inroads in the telecom sector," says Caroline Chappell, research analyst with Light Reading's Services Software Insider and author of the report. "Increasingly, the Internet world is becoming a source of over-the-top digital content services using Web 2.0 technologies that have nothing to do with telco standards such as IMS and SIP." If telcos resist incorporating Web 2.0 designs