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Don't get confused when you walk onto the Supercomm exhibit floor — this isn't the national cable show or the National Association of Broadcasters exhibit. But it may look very similar, as a preponderance of exhibitors will be demonstrating video applications.

Even companies such as ADVA Optical Networking, known for its metro optical and storage network solutions, will be showing off their expertise in supporting the triple play of voice, data and video.

“Video is a high-bandwidth app that people are willing to spend good money on,” said Brian McCann, ADVA's chief marketing and strategy officer. “We are seeing a transformation.”

The optical networks that service providers are building will support both video transport and data services, he said. That kind of thinking feeds well into the other big services trend at Supercomm, which is the growing roster of Ethernet services, increasingly the staple of business data.

Juniper, a major supplier of routers and other data gear, is seeing an increase in requests for features that support IP multicast, said David Boland, senior product marketing manager.

“The features have always been out there, but no one has used them,” he said. “When they start talking about IGMP — that's used for channel changing, and leaves and joins on the video side. When you see request for Ethernet line density and port density — they are rolling out Ethernet services, and they are going to be carrying video services.”

Underlying both efforts is the work of equipment vendors to bring telecom industry reliability to services that originated outside the industry.

Telco Systems, for example, is exhibiting an upgrade to its operating system for Ethernet switches that uses spanning tree protocols to deliver carrier-grade Ethernet services, said Dave Lee, vice president of marketing and service. The live Ethernet ring in its booth will be supporting fiber-to-the-home, VoIP, broadcast IP Video, and Wi-Fi backhaul. “We'll be able to demonstrate how the IP video suffers no hits when a fiber cut occurs,” he said.

All of this activity is focused on one goal: Enabling service providers to find new sources of revenue within their data networks.

Lucent Technologies, for example, is building its exhibit around the concept of “converged lifestyle services,” said Stef van Aarle, vice president of marketing and strategy of Lucent Worldwide Services. Lucent will be showing its IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) along with other technologies, but its focus will be on the applications that generate income.

“We want to address a larger understanding of what kind of revenues this technology is going to drive,” he said. “If we talk IMS with our clients, we get into discussions around some of the point applications that drive the new architecture that are going to produce revenue.”

Alcatel is hoping to leverage its relatively long history with Internet Protocol TV, which will be the dominant video form at Supercomm, said Derek Kuhn, director of business development for North America.

“Alcatel will be demonstrating the Microsoft TV product, and the messaging will be around how Alcatel's thought leadership and leadership in the broadband space makes the MSTV product work,” he said. “We have been doing this now for six and a half years. We can engineer the network to withstand what is required to make MSTV work and the related applications work.”

IPTV is also on the menu at Calix, which will be demonstrating what they believe is an unusual ability to support IPTV concurrently over both a passive optical network and a copper-based ADSL 2+ network.

“Most of the fiber-to-the premises deployments are for new community developments,” said Frank Wiener, vice president of field marketing at Calix. “In most of those new communities that will be served with PON, the people right across the street will be served by copper. A service provider wants to market and sell an identical service, regardless of what the access mechanism is, and that's what we are addressing. There are not many platforms which can concurrently support both.”

Tandberg TV will be showing another critical technology in video codecs running both MPEG 4 and Windows Media Player 9 compression.

“This is one of the key enabling technologies for telephone companies to be able to deliver broadcast quality video over copper loops,” said Noel Matthews, business development director for Tandberg.

Not every demo is based on the latest and sexiest new revenue opportunities, however. Ciena is exhibiting its CNX 100 Broadband Loop Carrier in a demo designed to show how service providers can increase DSL penetration.

“A lot of focus is on IPTV and bleeding edge,” said Malcolm Lewis, director of broadband services. “What we are saying is, in addition to that, there is a great business in going after remaining dial-up guys.”

By keeping costs low, Ciena will enable service providers to cost-effectively offer attractive DSL entry pricing and sustain profits while keeping service prices competitive, he said.