“IPTV is complex, with many choices for the consumer to make on an ongoing basis,” Mewada said in an interview at the conference. “We’ve put in place the ability to fulfill just in time…The whole system behind it needs to handle that for widespread deployment.”

NetCracker, which introduced its triple-play platform in May of last year, primarily targets tier-one players. Mewada said the company has been deploying its IPTV platform on a commercial basis for a while, but now it is focused on making it industrial-strength for the mass market. At the end of June, hardware vendor NEC agreed to acquire the company. While the deal hasn’t closed yet, the software NetCracker offers won’t change with the acquisition, Mewada said, rather they will garner more resources – namely hardware. Among service providers shopping for these systems, ease of management is a top priority. The market dynamics have made the need to deploy services faster and with better management even more pervasive. In this atmosphere, hardware vendors like NEC are faced with the choice to do the software themselves or acquire a company who can.

The two companies’ synergies are also aimed at helping IPTV providers enter into typically uncharted territories – their consumers’ homes. This hands-off strategy cannot last, Mewada said, as consumers are already deciding what devices they want to use. Citing the iPhone as an example, he pointed out that AT&T and Apple have been unable to stop Europeans from unlocking the phones to use over their own carrier’s networks.

“What a network is – the fundamental definition – changes dramatically,” he said of the new service management strategy. “You are not only doing network management, you are doing infrastructure management. The network can be anything – you may not be able to control or even know it is exists. The ability of an OSS system for management is going to be critical part of the success.”

Mewada’s advice to service providers is to keep the big picture in mind: new services and customization. Some NetCracker customers are trialing devices that call on human sensory touch so that if, for example, a consumer sees a suit on the Home Shopping Network that they want to feel the fabric of, vibrations on the remote or mobile phone can replicate the sensory perception of touching that suit.

Ultimately, he said, the value that service providers offer must go beyond IPTV to combine five elements: broadband everywhere, IT service platforms on open networks, ubiquitous wireless, innovative multi-access terminals and the IP core.

“When you mix and match [them], it can provide a compelling and unique proposition,” he said. “IPTV is just one slice of it...IPTV has to have value-added content. It is not enough to bring content together. It is actually creating an IPTV based portal that allows users to watch content, and how do I use IPTV to enable communication in the broader community I live in?”