IPTV: Boom or Bust?  Christopher Harz looks into the real
potential of IPTV is it a boom waiting to explode or is a fad
thats soon to bust?  One of the hottest topics at this years
Consumer Electronics Show was IPTV. The reason it may work this
time around is the increasing availability of Internet broadband
in more than 100 million households worldwide.  One of the
hottest topics at this years Consumer Electronics Show was IPTV
(Internet Protocol TV or television-over-the-Internet); the
National Assoc. of Television Program Executives (NATPE) show
similarly had a whole day dedicated to it. A survey by IBM
showed that 40% of TV broadcasters felt seriously threatened by
IPTV. And hardly a day goes by without a major studio or TV
broadcaster announcing a new vice president of digital media,
IPTV, new media, or something similar MTV even has a new cdo
(chief digital officer) in its Mahogany Row. Why all the
excitement? Hasnt this all been tried before, with dismal
consequences, in the late 1990s, with dot-com st