The consumer view

Whether you invent new technology, deploy new technology or just write about it, like me, it's hard not to get caught up in the newness of it. By the time DSL had been deployed commercially in my neighborhood, I had been writing about it for eight years. So when the topic first came up in a casual conversation among friends, I was overflowing with information — none of which anyone wanted to hear. All that mattered to them was that DSL was faster Internet that didn't tie up the phone lines.

Voice over IP is very much the same. The teachers at my daughter's high school got VoIP phones about the same time my office did. They didn't care that it was VoIP, just that they had cooler phones.

Now comes IPTV into a broader marketplace — it's finally hit the Chicago area, courtesy of AT&T — and it's the same old story. Consumers look at the television and see, well, television. It will be some time to come before they start seeing other things.

When they do, it will be the features they already understand that will have the greatest attraction. I personally believe whole-house digital video recorder service will be the next killer app, but that's because I've had a two-room DVR for more than two years now. Talk to those who don't yet use the service — still more than half of the U.S. market — and they don't always understand the magic.

Because IPTV is still just TV to most consumers, it's even more important that the TV service looks and behaves at least as well as the existing cable, satellite or broadcast offerings. IPTV technology companies and service providers alike have been saying this for some time.

But as we explore in this issue, saying it and delivering it can be two different things. Consumers aren't always prepared for the eight-hour installation process that can come with IPTV, and they certainly don't want to hear from customer service that the wiring inside their house is causing packets to go astray and degrade their picture quality.

The burden of bringing any new technology to market is doing it with the kind of customer service that sets realistic expectations and delivers on promises made to the greatest extent possible.

In the early days of DSL, telecom companies shot themselves in the foot with customer service. They have another chance at getting it right this time around. That would be something worth talking about.