This session can describe the latest experiences of the carriers and the main technology providers in growing this new industry, with emphasis on middleware evolution, OSS/BSS challenges, and coming service opportunities.

The presenters will describe their own experiences in technology selection, implementation, and operationalization of the new platforms. They will describe the market and competitive response to the IPTV offer, and as well, enumerate the requirements beyond the table stakes of high definition television, video on demand, and personal video recorders that are the reality of IPTV today. As well, the panel will discuss the challenges and opportunities in IPTV afforded by the availability of an IMS control plane in a carrier network. Last, the session will delve into the challenges and opportunities afforded by over-the-top Internet media delivery relative to IPTV.

Overall, this session will provide a report card of how IPTV has been implemented today, how it has been accepted by the marketplace, and what IPTV will have to become in order to be a viable competitor to other media delivery technologies.

James Slevinsky Director, Technology Strategy TELUS Communications

Mr. Slevinsky leads a team of senior technical consultants tasked with determining the five-year technology end states for TELUS' optical, IP, voice, fixed wireless, and wired access network infrastructures. In his 16 years at TELUS, Mr. Slevinsky has had active roles in the voice network special services, R&D, network standards, and network architecture groups. In addition, during a secondment to TRLabs as an industrial researcher, he was a key contributor to a team developing RingBuilderTM network design software, and he holds a patent for this work.

Tim Barrett Senior Principal Engineer IPTV Strategy Alcatel-Lucent

Mr. Barrett has been at Alcatel — now Alcatel — Lucent-for the last 14 years in a range of roles, from documentation to software development, strategy, and architecture. In the last seven years, he has been focused on video technologies and all aspects of delivering video over broadband infrastructure. Mr. Barrett has recently returned to Australia after two years in North America in the Network Strategy group, where his role included significant involvement in AT&T's Project Lightspeed, strategy development, and technical direction of the Strategic Solutions Lab in Canada.

Ildeu R. Borges Jr. Business Development Manager Brasil Telecom

Engineer formed at the Universidade de Brasilia, Mr. Borges was involved on the deployment of the broadband operation in Brasil Telecom, first in the work group responsible for the launch. Next, as the marketing director of BrTurbo, the first pure broadband ISP in Brazil, in one year he became the leader of the broadband providing in the Brasil Telecom area, and finally as the product manager of the entire operation.

Jean-Georges Fritsch Chief Operating Officer Minerva Networks

Dr. Fritsch joined Minerva Networks shortly after its foundation. In his previous position at C-Cube Microsystems, he headed the company's MPEG decoder product development, and he contributed to the development of its core MPEG encoding algorithms. From 1987 to 1989, Dr. Fritsch was a staff scientist at Alcatel Business Systems, focusing on speech recognition, speech compression, and digital acoustic echo canceling. Dr. Fritsch holds a Ph.D. in computer science and signal processing from the University of Nancy in France.

Mansoor Malik Senior Engineering Manager Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Mr. Malik has 15 years of experience in the high-technology industry working on a wide range of technologies. He is presently with Sun Microsystems, where he is working on a carrier-grade VoD and nPVR system that integrates storage, streaming, and switching capabilities. Mr. Malik worked at Nortel Networks, where he was involved with ATM/frame relay switches, network management systems, and VoIP systems.