Internet TV is the next big thing in media and when it finally takes off it will shake the TV industry to its core, disrupting long-established business models with significant new threats and opportunities. The 'TV over Net' conference is dedicated to this emerging platform and will investigate the impact that broadcast-quality streaming TV and VOD over broadband will have on content and channel owners, classic Pay

Internet TV (or broadband TV) must not be confused with IPTV, which uses IP as its transport mechanism but delivers video across private networks that are managed to ensure Quality of Service and therefore a guaranteed user experience. Internet TV is where content is delivered off the open, unmanaged Internet and is generally defined as a best-effort service today, meaning that video packets have to compete with all the other IP packets across the Internet (full of data from emails or websites etc) on an equal basis.

Internet TV is nothing new, but until now its potential has been greatly limited by a lack of bandwidth to the consumer home, and more importantly, a lack of premium quality video content. But in the last 18 months both these parameters have started to change.

The availability of hit series like 'Lost' and 'Desperate Housewives' from Disney-ABC on Apple's iTunes represents the willingness of major content owners to experiment with direct-to-home Web distribution models. For some content owners, it is a case of meeting a proven consumer demand for recorded content that is made available almost instantly to the PC and mobile players. If they can meet the demand for premium web-based video with legitimate services, then perhaps they will "keep honest people honest" and
away from illegal peer-to-peer services.

For other content owners, Internet video aggregation services (like iTunes or perhaps in future, Google Video or AOL's new video portal) is a way to remind the major Pay TV operators that they do not have a monopoly on content distribution. This can only be good for the content provider business when negotiating their future deals. And on top of this, there is an increasing level of trust in the integrity of Digital Rights Management systems for preventing unauthorised copying or distribution of Internet-based video content.

Due to bandwidth constraints, attempts to monetise Internet video (as opposed to offering it free) have revolved around file downloads rather than streaming, which has unreliable quality. The dramatic growth in last mile bandwidth in the last two years has made video file downloading much faster and therefore more user-friendly. It may still be some time before streaming video is worth paying for but today, downloading is proving good enough to build real mass-market services around.

The popularity of downloading video is being boosted, of course, by the increasing flexibility that consumers have in the way they use their video files. Internet TV is no longer just a PC-based application: now viewers can move their movies or TV programmes beyond their computer onto portable media players or even onto their television. Thus the Internet is becoming the point of content origination, but Internet TV is expanding its reach to the point where the term can define video on multiple devices that originated from an Internet service.

The 'TV-to-Net' conference makes its debut in 2007, co-located alongside the world's premier IPTV event, IPTV World Forum, in order to explore the emergence and likely evolution of Internet TV as a platform and business. The conference will address the business models and technologies behind Internet TV and will look especially at the opportunities and threats it presents for existing Pay TV platform operators like IPTV, cable and satellite, together with its relevance to content owners.

One thing is clear: the 'old' TV world is taking the Internet very seriously. Major satellite platforms like BSkyB are using broadband websites to establish VOD services to the PC (and possibly beyond) that are simply not possible on their one-way broadcast platforms. Major cable operators like NTL/Telewest in the UK are looking at how they can establish themselves as legitimate peer-to-peer enablers.

IPTV providers like AT&T in the US are using Internet video to fill the geographic gaps in their coverage where their private video networks have yet to reach. In this example, the company is substituting the Internet VOD service from Akimbo Systems for its own VOD-via-DSL/fibre service, enabling it to build a national footprint for video services using the best means available to it in any given location.

Other IPTV providers like Homechoice in the UK have been evangelising about the Internet as the ultimate long-tail - enabling a Pay TV operator to offer access to vast libraries of specialist content that would not be economic to store in their own network servers. Technology exists today that will transcode web-encoded video and turn it into traditional MPEG-based VOD assets within a private network, in response to an on-demand consumer request.

Unexpected alliances are already emerging. BitTorrent, whose powerful peer-to-peer software application threatened to 'Napsterise' video, is now marketing its technology to content owners and Pay TV operators and is working with NTL/Telewest to trial its peer-to-peer solution.

Internet video is exercising the minds of all platform operators. It is also creating fear. Internet-based content aggregators who potentially compete with Pay TV operators for VOD have been referred to as 'over-the-top' providers, since they deliver their services over somebody else's network. How should a telco or cable operator react to such a service when their ultra-fast broadband last mile - built at great cost - is used to deliver competitive services that they have no control over, or financial interest in?

The 'TV-over-Net' conference will address this major question, looking at the possibilities for regulatory protection, including exclusive use of fast networks (as Deutsche Telekom has sought on its VDSL network in Germany), or the right to discriminate against rival services or, at least, proactively favour in-house Internet TV through the use of Quality of Service management.

Will the big platform operators seek to fight 'over-the-top' providers or will they cooperate with the new video aggregators? Should they accept Internet video as inevitable and seek revenue shares in return for integrating big-brand service providers into their user interfaces or even Electronic Programme Guides? And how should the so-called over-the-top providers approach this market: do they really have the marketing power and customer relationship know-how to go it alone?

This conference will address the business issues being generated by Internet video, the service models that are causing so much interest, and the customer premise devices that are driving this market. That includes mobile devices but also set-top boxes that link to PCs, and vice-versa.

We will assess how Internet TV can be harnessed by existing Pay TV operators, including how they can offer their subscribers a window on the Web, and the ability to search for and request Internet-based content, then see it delivered onto their television screens rather than their PC. We will also be looking at the new world through the eyes of Internet video entrepreneurs.