IPTV Appeals to Some Early Adopters

The idea of IPTV is starting to catch on with early adopters, even though it's not really available anywhere yet. In a new survey released earlier today, Siemens Communications found that nearly one-fifth of early adopters would likely junk their cable or satellite TV provider if their phone company offered IPTV service. Specifically, the survey, conducted for Siemens by In-Stat, found that 18% of early adopters say they would "probably" or "definitely" switch from cable or satellite TV to their phone company if that company offered IPTV. More ominously for cable operators, another 34% of early adopters say they would follow these initial switchers if offered just a 10% price break on their TV bills. The survey also revealed that the planned IPTV services most in demand are time-shifted TV, video telephony/chat, video home surveillance and gaming. Time-shifted TV easily led the way among this group, with 90% of early adopters expressing interest in the service and 58% of this segment saying they would be willing to pay extra for it. Such other oft-mentioned IPTV services as caller ID on TV, interactive information, call logging and remote programming of TV also drew interest from early adopters. But the study respondents mostly said they wouldn't be interested in paying extra fees for these services.