Since the creation of a television mass market in the 1950s, the experience of watching TV has changed little. But innovations in IP and mobile telecommunications technology offer TV a future that few back then could have imagined, according to a panel of industry players presented on June 18 at NXTcomm08 in Las Vegas.

Now that TV is entering fixed broadband and mobile telecommunications networks, passive viewing is becoming a thing of the past, soon to be replaced by interactive behavior enabled by IPTV and mobile TV. As Ericsson Vice President, Multimedia, System Integration, Hosting, Peter Laurin puts it, “a good comment I heard during NXTcomm was that the TV today is the PC of the 1980s.

“Like the PC back then, the TV will realize its incredible potential once it is connected to a network.

Even though TV today offers viewers a relatively better experience than the tiny black screens and weak processors of early PCs, that experience is about to undergo fundamental change.”

Laurin says the conference in Las Vegas underscored the fact that this transformation has been set in motion.

In the Ericsson-sponsored session “The Future of TV,” Laurin led a panel composed of Jeff Weber, vice president of Video Products at AT&T; Paul Scanlan, co-founder and president of MobiTV; Hirosuke Matsumura, vice president of Sony Electronics; and Tom Brookbanks, managing partner of Mediaedge:cia.

“The presentation on AT&T U-verse TV spotlighted a commercial IPTV launch that is gathering steam while reducing churn among US subscribers,” Laurin says.

“The audience was very impressed with what AT&T is creating,” Laurin says. “Listening to Jeff Weber talk about how AT&T is pushing the service across PC, mobile and TV screens and continuously adding new features – such as the ability to click to call from your TV – you really got the sense that the world has changed.”

Laurin says panelists’ experience demonstrates the opportunity now facing the broadband-enabled telecom industry. “Operators have the networks and the broadband capability to deliver an experience where people combine watching TV with internet behavior. They can interact with online communities while watching high-definition content, using chat, voice and file sharing.”

Considering that 20 percent of US viewers surf the web while watching TV, Laurin says it is not a stretch to soon see the development of a mass market for IPTV and mobile TV.

He says the panel also agreed that telecom operators can compete in the TV arena by providing convergence, interaction and telco-grade quality to the viewer, but content must be of exceptional quality and in High Definition format. “The IPTV experience has to be better than the cable experience for people to make the transition,” Laurin says.

The NXTcomm conference reaffirmed for Laurin the strong position Ericsson has staked out with its expanded portfolio and Televisionary Campaign.

“With Ericsson’s broader portfolio and our very strong services capabilities such as system integration, we’re unmatched in our ability to deliver an end-to-end TV offering,” he says. “IPTV, for example, is one of the most complex offerings you can manage with broadband, and to be able to take a prime integrator role with solid systems integration capabilities is extremely important.”