HOT SPRINGS, Va.--As the number of independent telcos getting into IPTV is booming, the time may be right for a national consortium aimed at helping resolve integration issues and possibly addressing content acquisition, similar to the cable industry’s CableLabs.

A number of speakers and exhibitors here at the 43^rd Annual OPASTCO Summer Conference and Trade Show say the complexity of tying together the piece parts of an IPTV play such as middleware, set-top boxes and access/transport gear, may keep some smaller companies out of the IPTV market, or make their business case much harder.

“It would be very helpful if there was some kind of group that dealt with interoperability,” said Ken Hoops, president of Silver Star Communications, an independent telco providing voice, data and video to multiple communities in Wyoming. Hoops, who was a presenter on an IPTV panel discussion here, said a CableLabs-type organization could help independents deal with integration of multiple vendors in their networks.

In his presentation, Hoops recommended use of third-party integrators to address the vendor issues, based on his company’s experience rolling out IPTV.

“I would suggest using third-party consultants if you are just entering the market now,” he said. “They can help you connect multiple vendors and make it work end-to-end. I would suggest getting someone who knows [IPTV] and holding their feet to the fire. Get performance guarantees on the interoperability of various platforms.”

Melinda Crawley, president and owner of MS Communications, which provides sales, technical and customer service training to independent telcos, agreed that a “CableLabs-type thing for our industry would be most useful,” because of the way the national organization helped plan a program for the future.

The complicating factor, said panelist Mike Deller, engineering manager for Comporium Group, a multi-service company out of Rock Hill, S.C., is that, while CableLabs started from scratch in developing its DOCSIS specifications for cable modems, a number of independent telcos are already deploying IPTV.

“As more companies get involved with IPTV, it is hard to make things backward compatible,” he said, and even harder to convince current players to rip out equipment in which they have already invested.

Both Deller and Hoops bemoaned the fact that they don’t have access to DVR capabilities on their current IPTV middleware platforms and will need that to compete.

Some independent telcos are already turning to integrators to help them move forward. Falcon Communications this week is doing the first installation its integrated platform that now includes Intelsat’s Ampiage MPEG-4 video transport service, one of the new headed-in-the-sky offerings.

“We are starting our first install this week to be ready for when the first MPEG-4 set-top boxes come out this fall,” said Donald Pierce, network systems at Falcon. The company ties together the IPTV gear, including set-top boxes from multiple vendors (Entone, Thomson and Scientific Atlanta, now part of Cisco Systems), and a MetaSwitch softswitch to support VoIP.

Independent telcos are often out in front of the market in deploying technology, which creates unique integration challenges, agreed Anthony Marcello, director of IOC operations at MetaSwitch.

“These are often very cutting edge organizations – they don’t have to be RBOC followers,” he said. “They want to offer a variety of IP applications, but putting together solutions that get our customers in position to deploy the technology reliably is a big leap.”

MetaSwitch is working with multiple companies, including Falcon, to offer integrated solutions to independent telco problems, he said.