According to a recent report by ABI Research, IPTV over wireless broadband is an attractive offering for consumers and carriers - but there are many challenges to overcome to ensure it can be delivered effectively.

Whilst IPTV can currently be delivered to homes over wired connections, its bandwidth hungry nature means carriers are constantly scrambling to upgrade infrastructure. Adding to this cost, they have to connect homes (generally via coax cable) to the main cable running down the street.

This is where wireless is clearly advantageous: It’s more cost effective in reaching more consumers and there are no cabling issues to speak of. However, according to the research paper, conventional wireless technology simply wouldn’t cut it when it comes to high quality streaming media.

The 2007 Future of Media Report was recently published in pdf, in time for the Silicon Valley and Sydney based Future of Media Summit.

In this article, we look at the main concepts, issues and research results discussed in this annual media report.

The 2006 edition of the Future of Media report achieved a great deal of interest, with over 70, 000 downloads of the freely available document across 20 countries.

This year Ross Dawson and the team at Future Exploration Network have put together a compelling picture of the evolving convergence media landscape.

It comes as no surprise, then, to see the huge growth of online social networks and social media taking center stage, alongside a divergence in content monetization and advertising approaches in a rapidly splintering media environment.

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I’ve become a regular reader of the free IPTV and broadcast media research publications that the research group Accenture publish. The latest free research paper to hit the virtual internet book shelves is Accenture’s Media Content Survey 2007.

For this publication Accenture surveyed more than 100 of the most influential content executives in leading worldwide companies in the film, TV, music, radio, videogame, publishing and advertising industries.

This really gives an insight into what the powerful people within the media industry think about its future. While the survey is not centered on the broadband video/IPTV industry, the current state of the media world makes the internet central to this report.

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Forrester Research recently came out with a bold claim that paid internet video downloads have no future. The report claims that paid downloads will give way to ad-supported models.

This claim waivers on one major issue: will quality internet video only be a mainly ad-supported business? And the answer is most definitely no.

The reason is mainly tied in with DVD sales and the fact that content owners will not want to switch to a questionable ad supported business when they have a lucrative DVD sales. However, they will be prepared to offer paid video downloads in addition to selling DVDs. Mike Wolf of ABIResearch is also thinking along the same lines.

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When it comes to the internet men are always out there in front spending wasted hours sitting in front of the PC screen while the women catch up on their favorite soaps. It’s no surprise to me then that women lag behind when it comes to watching online video.

A study be eMarketer shows that 78% of male internet users will watch video online video this year, while only 66% of women will.

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Accenture — a consulting, outsourcing and technology company — has been following the IPTV industry very closely. The company has just recently released its latest 13 page research report; IPTV Monitor Issue 3.

This research paper adds to a growing number of great research reports that Accenture has published on the emerging IPTV and internet TV industry. These include: