Having just returned from TelecomVideo Europe 2005, I thought it might be a good idea to round-out the week with some IPTV regulation thoughts:

* During two separate conversations at the conference, people conveyed to me the idea that telcos aren’t really that interested in IPTV, but that they are moving to deploy (or considering the idea) as purely a defensive measure against other ‘triple-play’ threats. Recipe for failure.

* Many people at the conference assume that ‘IPTV’ describes the situation where a service provider (whether a telco or not) acts as an aggregator and offers a channel / subscription package to consumers on a cable-like basis with an EPG, etc. There wasn’t much discussion at the conference about content owners going it alone, and putting their content directly on the web, either as a complement to, or replacement for, other distribution platforms. We’ve seen this happening already, particularly with Major League Baseball in the U.S., but perhaps the future of IPTV will be a mix. I think it is clear that policymakers need to consider both types of business models, and others.

* The trade press is covering the European Commission’s intended revision of the Television Without Frontiers Directive (to possibly include content regulation of IPTV) from a fairly skeptical perspective. Paul Carr wrote an interesting piece in the Guardian on Monday, asking:

Firstly, at exactly what point does, say, a flash cartoon or a viral video become a TV programme? If I include an animated gif in a blog, have I suddenly become a broadcaster? …. Or will the regulations only apply to commercial broadcasters who put existing programmes on the net? What about the new breed of internet-only ‘broadcasters’ who are popping up to take advantage of the broadband revolution? But whatever the answer to all of these huge questions turns out to be, there’s an even huger question that no one in Brussels seems to be asking. Has anyone realised that the internet reaches beyond Europe?

* We learned that Microsoft is conducting an ethnographic study in Cambridge, covering twelve households. Not many details were given, but it appears to be a study aimed toward uncovering how media is actually used (and created) in the home.