Year on year growth rates of 6.7% have taken broadband subscription to 508,761,837 in the third quarter of 2010, according to figures prepared by Point Topic (http://www.point-topic.com) and announced today by the Broadband Forum in its Global Broadband and IPTV Industry Update. Over 14.3 million lines were added in the third quarter alone, representing 2.88% growth over the previous quarter.

It seems like a natural progression to bring the Internet to every possible consumer electronics device available today, and the television set is no exception. Not to be left behind, many a DTH provider has provisioned Ethernet ports in the next generation of STBs, although the software and strategy to provide enhanced services may still be a few years away. As expected, North America and Western Europe are leading this market as viewers in these regions become more particular about what content they want as well as where and when they want it.

The availability of 3D content will remain the greatest determinant of the value of 3D TVs to consumers – and as a result its achievable premium in TV sets. 3D TVs were launched with much fanfare at IFA 2009, but a year ago at CES, the first real products reached the market. Since then, shipments have made steady, although slightly disappointing, progress.

The DTT Set Top Box market continues to expand, as countries migrate from standard definition (SD) TV to high definition (HD) programs, and digital video recorders become more important.  New products like hybrid web-to-TV set top boxes also will contribute to the long-term growth of DTT STBs pushing revenues to nearly US$ 6 billion by 2014, says In-Stat.

According to NSR’s Government and Military Satellite Communications, 7th Edition report the industry will continue revenue gains until 2019 despite the imminent troop drawdown and complete withdrawal of allied troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Policy changes in these hotspots are beginning to affect demand trends and market potential, which has grown robustly since 2002. There appears to be a turning point in market dynamics where sustainability and growth levels may have reached their peak.

According to NSR’s Global Satellite-Based Earth Observation, 2nd Edition study, the Earth Observation (EO) market growth, size and shape is more than ever affected by government contracts, in particular from military users. They are the largest consumers of high-resolution satellite imagery, as demonstrated by the recent EnhancedView contracts from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) that will generate a majority of the EO data market revenues over the next ten years.

(MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) set-top box shipments surpassed MPEG-2-only set-top box shipments for the first time in 2010, with about 53% MPEG-4 shipments worldwide. Despite the support for advanced encoding, however, pay-TV operators worldwide have been slow to support interactive features on set-top boxes, according to ABI Research.

Paid-for television content – whether through cable, satellite or the Internet – is preferred over free-to-air services – even in markets where free programming is more readily available, according to global research from Motorola Mobility.

According to the latest figures from ABI Research, global pay-TV service revenue totaled $55.5 billion during the third quarter of 2010, approximately a 9% increase from the same period in 2009.   Currently more than half of global telco TV service revenues come from Western Europe where telco TV penetration is already quite high, and net subscriber additions in the region are expected to slow due to that penetration. The result: telco TV’s market share in terms of subscriber numbers and service revenue is expected to decline in Western Europe in the coming years.

Despite the difficulties faced to date, the timing is ripe for mobile video services to take off in certain Asia-Pacific markets due to the enhanced capability of the networks, increasing popularity and affordability of smartphones, and improvements in the mobile video business, according to a new report from Pyramid Research.