A recent report from Dittberner says the U.S. is not among the top 10 countries worldwide for IPTV subscribership. This probably comes as a surprise to almost no one, considering the lack of a previous cable TV foothold in many international markets, as well as the broader number of DSL-based competitors trying to out-do one another in many of those same markets.

In the U.S., there is cable TV's market dominance to overcome, but large telcos like AT&T also in most cases don't have a crowd of other IPTV competitors nipping at their heels. Perhaps that's why AT&T can lower its expectation for the number of IPTV markets it hoped to have by the end of 2006 without worrying about the competitive consequences--since there won't really be any competitive consequences.

Some initial reader feedback on that story already suggests we're making too big a deal of whether or not AT&T made its IPTV goal. Apparently, not many people feel there is any irony in AT&T lowering its goal at the same time that it made long-term commitments to increase broadband deployment in order to gain FCC approval for its acquisition of BellSouth.

And if that's the case, I think it's a good time to reassess industry opinions about IPTV. I'd like to invite further comment from our readers, some of which I'll print in this space next week, on the relative importance of IPTV as a service to the telco industry. Should there be more of a sense of urgency to deploy IPTV, and if so, why? If not, should we be satisfied with IPTV being a quid pro quo to whatever level of competition telcos see from cable TV? Should we care as an industry how quickly and broadly IPTV is being deployed in the U.S.? Should we care about the IPTV penetration in the U.S. relative to rest of the world?

E-mail me at doshea@telephonyonline.com.