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Telephone companies will be viable competitors to the cable companies in video services, according to the Supercomm 2005 attendees surveyed by Tellabs and Telephony magazine.

An overwhelming 83% of the 305 people surveyed said telcos can take on cable and succeed. Cementing the optimistic outlook was the projection by more than 75% of those surveyed that telcos will be competitive in video within three years.

That was also the time period in which almost half of respondents expect consumer and business voice, data and video to converge onto a single network.

There was considerable division on the question of what video services will drive consumer demand, however, with HDTV coming out on top, ahead of IPTV and video-on-demand. Satellite TV was a distant fourth.

Respondents were also divided on whether best-effort Ethernet is a successful market offering, with 48% saying, "yes" and 42% saying, "no."

The survey was conducted on Tues., June 7, and covered a variety of issues, focusing on services that will inspire consumers to spend going forward.