Alcatel Asia Pacific vice president Christian Reinaudo said customers want personalized and user-centric broadband services and in the future there would be increasing demand for multimedia services, especially video services.

"The number of IPTV users will increase from 2.6 million today to between 70 to 100 million worldwide; in Asia Pacific IPTV users are expected to increase from just under a million to 16.5 million by 2010," he said.

"The adoption of convergence in Asia Pacific is big and diverse -- it is at the top of the agenda. Across the whole platform, cost-effectiveness is the key driver."

Reinaudo said the cost of infrastructure is important in developing markets.

Alcatel CTO Vince Pizzica said the road map in 15 to 20 years is moving to voice-based services but recognized IP as "pretty important". There will be more similarities and the networks will become more blended.