ATLANTA--Despite the many interpretations of the term “interactive television,” TV-watching remains the core experience that consumers want more of, according to Dave Grubb, vice president of business development for Motorola, at today’s TelcoTV Motorola workshop. First and foremost, consumers interpret “interactive” to mean watching what they want, when, where and how they want it. And they don’t care how it gets there – just that it does without a glitch.

“To consumers, IP is irrelevant – it is just about TV,” Grubb said. He added that consumers' secondary definitions for interactive TV encompass gaming, personal media, music and social networking services such as Facebook, which he called “a leading indicator of where the world is going.”

All of these video, data and video services aren’t changing, only where consumers use them is. Especially with a younger generation, the idea of owning a landline telephone and paying for the monthly service often seems unnecessary and somewhat archaic in light of the prevalence of cell phones. On the other hand, Grubb emphasized that every blended service that can make its way into a consumer’s home should, as it aids customer retention. It will always be more difficult to terminate your cable subscription if your telephony and television services are tied into it as well.

Consumers may want the control, but according to Motorola, their confusion regarding high-definition content is still evident. Consumers don’t want to have excess boxes cluttering their homes, yet they love their TiVo or DVR boxes once they understand their capabilities. Approximately 33 million households own at least one HDTV set as of April of this year, but only 44% of them are actually connected to an HD source. In terms of DVD players currently in households, out of 41% of consumers who believe their DVD player is HD, less than 1% actually are HD capable.

“This presents a significant market opportunity for service providers to educate consumers and give them a real HD service,” Grubb said, noting that out of 18 digital TV formats, six are HD.

HD or otherwise, media mobility is another important trend that Grubb identified as significant to the future of IPTV. This mobility comes in many forms, including in-home place-shifting among TV sets, mobile handset downloads and on-the-go media, to name a few. Mobile video service reached 3.3% penetration in the first quarter of 2007 – a number that has been reported as both significant and as largely underwhelming, depending on the source. According to Grubb, this number is just the tip of the iceberg in North America, where it represents almost 8 million subscribers.

Bill Weeks, director of strategic technology for Motorola, said that as technology is getting more complex in the home, the greatest opportunity will come from connecting mobile phones and TV sets to achieve seamless mobility. A significant factor in this will be mobile video, he said.

“I truly believe video is the anchor service,” Weeks said. “It has been for cable for years. More and more [operators] will get interested in mobile video in the near future.”

HDTV and multi-stream DVRs are musts, Grubb said, and a rich VOD offering will also prove important in today’s consumer-control oriented market. Above these bare minimum requirements, he added, mobility in the home can serve as a service differentiator, while mobility outside the home is still an emerging requirement to consider.