The consensus at both the TelcoTV show in Atlanta and Telephony's IPTV Workshop last week in Boston was that the worlds of Web TV and IPTV are moving from complementary to converged, creating an opportunity for telcos to capitalize on new modes of differentiation.

“The TV is basically a bigger monitor,” said Danny Briere, CEO of TeleChoice, in Boston. “[Telcos] should be doing applications on it.”

With more and more viewers using the Internet to watch video — the number has doubled since last year — IPTV providers' best bet might be to combine forces or risk being run over. However, the end experience matters more than how users access content, said Thierry Fautier, director of telco solutions for Harmonic.

“There will be lots of convergence to come,” Fautier said, “but for users to accept that, there has to be better quality of service.”

Of course, convergence alone will not be enough to satisfy consumers' insatiable appetite for content. Pankaj Patel, marketing manager for Cisco Systems, said that while customers appreciate Web functionality on their TV sets, they want to consume the content anywhere — a demand that is becoming easier for service providers to meet.

Rory Altman, co-founder of Altman Vilandrie & Co., told IPTV Summit attendees in Boston that the Web could offer IPTV providers a real, significant mode of differentiation. “We see a multitude of devices spread throughout the home that enable you to get access to short-term applications” such as weather and flight information, Altman said.