The telcos are investing billions and using a variety of technologies to get their services to homes. SBC and BellSouth are developing Internet Protocol TV, or IPTV, a system that uses Internet standards to deliver a wide range of channels and advanced interactive services.

Using the Internet as a delivery system is not as dicey as it may sound. The channels won’t be like the jerky, pixelated images emanating from some news websites. Rather, the new IPTV systems will use dedicated, high-capacity lines to bring in hundreds of standard- and high-definition channels, with picture quality as good as the best seen on satellite television. And unlike Internet movie download services like Akimbo, CinemaNow, and MovieLink, these pictures do not have to be recorded first; they can be viewed in real time with no delay, just as if you were watching over a cable system.

IPTV has already taken off in countries such as China, Korea, and Norway, among others. And a handful of small IPTV systems are now operating in Georgia, Oklahoma, and California.

In Sacramento, Calif., for example, 18,000 people get IPTV from SureWest Communications, and receive hundreds of channels via fiber-optic cable that comes right into the house. An added benefit is super-fast broadband DSL—up to 10 times the speed of standard DSL services—which is a great benefit for online game players. “The whole beauty of IPTV is the ability to offer advanced services in the future,” said Bill DeMuth, a SureWest vice president and chief technology officer.
 
But the big push will come next year when SBC begins to offer its version of IPTV, called U-Verse. At January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, SBC demonstrated an early version of the concept, with all the bells and whistles they could muster.