2/3/2009 -- Since its acquisition in late 2006, Scientific Atlanta has been a cash cow for Cisco Systems Inc., thanks largely to the surging growth of IP Television (IPTV). Scientific Atlanta was -- and under Cisco's stewardship, still is -- a preeminent manufacturer of the set top box (STB) devices that power IPTV.

With the world in the grip of an economic crisis, you might expect Cisco's IPTV fortunes to nosedive. But that isn't necessarily true, according to market watchers. While demand in a couple of established markets might slacken -- such that growth is relatively flat -- IPTV uptake in emerging markets, especially in so-called Second or Third World environments, will more than make up the difference.

That's the upshot of new research from In-Stat, a telco, wireless and networking market watcher. In spite of ongoing financial chaos, In-Stat projected that the world's IPTV subscriber rolls will swell by more than three-fold (300 percent) through 2012, chiefly as a result of demand in key emerging markets such as Brazil, Korea and India. Meanwhile, IPTV rollouts in other still-gestating markets -- locales such as Montenegro, Jordan, and Ghana, according to In-Stat -- could fuel future demand.

In fact, In-Stat said, in spite of worsening conditions, only a very few markets such as Argentina and Japan aren't faring all that well. And in the case of both countries, In-Stat reported, anemic growth is more a function of telco restrictions than of slackening demand.

By 2012, In-Stat predicted, telco TV subscribership will swell to 71.6 million, causing revenues to spike to $26.6 billion. Over the same period, operators -- far from being chary in the face of economic uncertainty -- will get even more ambitious, introducing quadruple-, double- and even single-play packages, according to In-Stat.

Elsewhere, some providers are catching on to the potential benefits of convergence, introducing services that give customers the ability to control STBs from their computers or even mobile phones. --Stephen Swoyer