Telcos Aiding Internet-TV Market

Telephone companies are installing more Internet TV,driving higher demand for set-top boxes that thesupport the service, a research firm said Monday.

As a result, shipments of Internet protocol/DSL boxes are expected to grow to 16.9 million in2009 from 1.7 million in 2004, In-Stat said. By theend of the forecast, IP/DSL boxes are expected tosurpass digital cable boxes.

Nevertheless, the research firm expects a shakeoutover the next few years among manufacturers.

"There are over 80 vendors offering IP/DSL set topboxes today," In-Stat analyst Michelle Abraham said ina statement. "That's too many vendors for a market ofthis size. Only about 25 of them have telcocustomers."

In other findings in the recent In-Stat study, theaverage selling price of the IP/DSL boxes was highestin the North America, due to the demand for a digital video recorder, high-definition playback and multi-roomcapabilities. And the greatest technology shift inIP/DSL boxes is the move to advanced vide compression,which requires more memory and more powerful videodecoders than the current MPEG-2 standard.