Survey Finds Americans Will Embrace IPTV

A Zogby-Redback survey finds a majority Americans would embrace IPTV as long as they got their favorite channels...and that a video-centric Internet may be more dangerous for kids.

A new survey conducted by Zogby-Redback looked at Americans’ attitudes towards broadband, video, and mobile services they might be willing to pay for in the future. Among the results: of 1,006 Americans surveyed, 53 percent would be willing to replace existing cable or satellite service with broadband television so long as they continued to receive the same TV channels.

"These findings help illustrate how people use broadband and mobile devices today and what they anticipate doing in the future. This poll makes it quite easy to imagine a world where all TV and movie content is portable and two billion cell users become 2 billion TVs or 2 billion TV broadcasters," said Alan Lippman, chief video architect of Redback Networks.

The poll also found that a whopping 88 percent of respondents believe video cell phone calls will become a reality within five years, 80 percent think it should be illegal to use Internet mobile devices while driving, and 75 percent think it’s rude to use a BlackBerry or similar device in a meeting or restaurant.

Interestingly, 74 percent believe a video-centric Internet may be more dangerous for children…but 64 percent of parents surveyed would subscribed to mobile TV services in cars to entertain the kids. Among respondents, 55 percent said parents and individuals are responsible for making broadband technology safe, bu 29 percent said parents have the main responsibility for making Internet devices safe for children.

"Within five years," Lippman continued, "broadband will be as video-centric as your cable or satellite service, and telephone and high-speed mobile networks may emerge as alternative platforms for triple-play services, delivering greater choice to consumers. There also are emerging revenue opportunities for broadband carriers who meet increasing demand for parental control services."

Other interesting findings: 12 percent of respondents said they either had or nearly had a car accident while checking email on their BlackBerry, and 5 percent admitted to checking email on a mobile device while in the bathroom.