A great advantage of IPTV over traditional TV is its capability to naturally integrate various VASs, e.g., televoting, TV shopping, on-line albums, caller-ID display, buddy lists, presence, and instant messaging over the same convergent IPTV platform. Such value-added services may be intelligently associated with the content being viewed. To generalize, what types of value-added services may be added onto IPTV platforms? What technologies and standards should be adopted as the interfaces between VAS modules and IPTV platforms?

How should providers' existing network and service infrastructure be integrated to mitigate cost and disruption? Meanwhile, how do providers innovate to have the most scalable and dynamic infrastructure to enable maximal growth? IMS is one way. So are many of the Web 2.0 technologies. How can service providers leverage such technologies? As building VASs are critical to IPTV service providers, this session invites speakers to share experience and thoughts on paradigms and technologies to integrate and potentially grow applications exponentially.

Wolfgang Nagel Marketing Manager Nokia Siemens Networks

Mr. Nagel is responsible for fixed-mobile convergence solutions at Nokia Siemens Networks. Before this he held various positions in marketing, product management, and business development for mobile data solutions at Siemens. He joined Siemens as senior business consultant in Siemens' Mobile Networks division and was responsible for driving various customer consulting projects worldwide. Prior to this, from 1989, Wolfgang held various marketing and business development positions in Frankfurt at Bosch Telecom in the Private Networks business unit.

Hong Tang Director, Data Network Division China Telecom

Mr. Tang has been leading technology development of China Telecom in IP, multimedia communication, industrial and national standardization, and international standardization in the ITU-T since 1997.

Balaji TS Group Head, NGN Solutions and Services Tech Mahindra

Mr. Balaji has more than 18 years of telecom industry experience. At Tech Mahindra, he heads IP-related initiatives around VoIP, 3GPP IMS, and IPTV. Over the last eight years, he has led several projects and provided consultancy around VoIP, SS7, and network planning. Mr. Balaji's past experience includes product engineering, network planning, and operations. He was involved in the setup of one of the first GSM networks in India in 1995 as a switch engineer and later on as operations in charge.