"The opportunity from IPTV has to be seen in proportion to the loss of revenue from traditional services and, therefore, the smartest NGN investment strategies balance cost savings on legacy services with enabling new services," says the report's main author, Rupert Wood. "Telcos will have to stretch their brands beyond the rapidly commodifying triple-play market if they are to avoid further erosion of revenue. Genuine differentiation at the level of applications or content, more engagement in the distribution of customer equipment, and rapid development of the wholesale managed-service portfolio are all viable strategies for avoiding this fate."
Key findings from the new report indicate that in Western Europe by 2012: retail legacy voice revenue will have declined by 53%, and overall fixed-line call minutes, of which retail VoIP will account for 12%, will represent just 36% of total voice broadband and data services will account for 63% of operators' retail revenue average Western European residential broadband penetration will rise to 70%. The popularity of broadband will reverse years of decline in household fixed-line penetration in some markets over 30% of households will have a broadband connection but no legacy narrowband connection.