DALLAS--Two general session panels this morning at the TelcoTV conference and expo presented both sides of an IPTV content conundrum: Will carriers maintain “walled garden” approaches to content or more open Internet-inspired attitudes?

Carriers are saying they are as influenced by the Internet as everyone and want to bring the benefits of the Web video explosion—as exemplified by YouTube—to bear for their IPTV customers. “Controlling and distributing video is the hard part of this. There are gobs of video content out there, but no good way to navigate it,” said Lee Friedman, director of IPTV applications at BellSouth, during the panel, “MeTV: Exploring the true power of IPTV.” He added, “Cable is very closed and very limited and what we have to do is make it more like the Web—open.”

Jeff Weber, vice president of product and strategy at AT&T Operations, said, “The ‘long-tail effect brings a wider array of content to our customers, which is a huge advantage for us. We are very focused on building out or infrastructure, but we are equally focused on content.” Weber said that in addition to creating a quality IPTV service, AT&T is trying to create an environment conducive to open content development and evolution. “None of us want to be in the business of trying to figure out what the next killer app will be.”

While telco adopt Internet-inspired attitudes about content, other industry experts say they will be very careful and gradual in how much openness they allow. Trey Gaskins, chief operating officer at Dave.TV, was a panelist during this morning’s session, “Broadband TV: Bypass Villain or Golden Opportunity.” He noted, “Ringtones are a huge, multi-million dollar business because carriers didn’t open it up. For the foreseeable future, a walled-garden approach can protect their investment.”

Mike Hudack, CEO of blip.tv, said during the same panel that telcos should control the menu of services, not the content capable of coming in from Internet giants like Google. He suggested that perhaps telcos could charge content transaction fees behind the scenes. “This brings net neutrality into video,” Hudack said. “The reason why the Internet is such a success is that it’s open.”