Telecoms fighting in tough TV arena

Services via phone confront confusion and rivals aplenty.

LONDON: David Holt was leading a discussion at a conference on a new kind of television, sent into living rooms over telephone lines, when he decided to pop his toughest question. How many people in the audience, asked Holt, an executive at Nortel, actually watched television in this way?

The mostly young, male telecommunications and media executives facing Holt — Scandinavians in funky glasses, Americans with phones clipped to their belts — might have looked like early adopters. But only about a dozen people, out of several hundred in the room, raised their hands.

Faced with the loss of revenue from their core businesses, telecommunications companies around the world are spending billions to build high-speed networks that can deliver so-called IPTV services — like digital television, on-demand movies and interactive services — via telephone lines.