Despite all the attention being given to IPTV, there is a world of IP services that don't address just the consumer market. In fact, the transition to an all-IP network has created a wealth of possibilities that began with voice over IP and service convergence and now include software as a service, presence-enabled services and more.

The real challenge for service providers has been identifying which IP services they want to offer and developing both the underlying capabilities and the ability to sell these new services.

"We are going through a little bit of a mind shift--service providers have skills around selling core voice service," said Michael O'Hara, general manager of Microsoft's Communications Sector. "They need a little help learning how to sell other things. In our conversations, they are saying they need services that they can get deployed over these networks, and that bridges onto, 'Can you help us sell those services?'"

Microsoft is steering service provider customers to consider selling "live" software packages--Windows Live, Office Live, Xbox Live--as services that the software giant hosts in its data centers. On display at NXTcomm will be those capabilities and Microsoft's Connected Services Sandbox, an environment in which service providers can test out new applications.

"We have some good examples where people are out there in implementation," O'Hara said. "Orange was concerned about revenue loss from SMS. So we combined the Microsoft IM community--which is 240 million IDs--with Orange's 130 million telecom users across the world and created an offering with a client on the PC and a client on the mobile device that lets users click to call people, click to see video. It's funded by subscription and by advertising, which creates a win-win for both companies."

There are also more traditional IP service paths that build on expanded capacity of core, metro and access networks. NXTcomm attendees can expect to see major product releases from companies such as Redback Networks, Juniper Networks, Occam Networks and others.

The goal of much of this effort is to not just add capacity but also to add intelligence to enable more efficient service deployment, said Arpit Joshipura, vice president of product management for Redback. Much of the effort is being driven by IPTV, he added, but the service capacity can also be used for other IP services, including wireless-wireline convergence.

Similarly, core router upgrades are being driven by the need to deliver video but also will take into account the need for more intelligence, said Shailesh Shukla, vice president of service provider marketing and partnerships at Juniper.

"We want to add intelligence in the core so you can do two things -- you can manage traffic cost effectively so you can build networks that are efficient, and you can enable the core to participate in actual service delivery," he said.

As service providers extend the reach of IP, they also are in a better position to deploy advanced offerings such as Ethernet at the edge of the network. Increasingly, business customers--even small to mid-sized businesses or large businesses with many smaller locations--are looking to Ethernet services for greater efficiency.

"There are many ways to offer Ethernet," said Kevin Morgan, director of marketing for Adtran's Carrier Division. "You can put in a DSLAM at every access point in your network that is close to business users that want it. That is expensive proposition."

What Adtran will be showing is the ability to do bonding of T-1s to deliver faster Ethernet-based service using existing T-1s and T-3 links. By changing out the customer premises equipment to a termination device that does bonding at that location, Morgan said, service providers can the "bring all those T-1s through your existing cloud to some intelligent device to bond them for delivery over the IP-MPLS core."

Adtran is one of several vendors showing Ethernet-over-copper services including Actelis, Atrica and Hatteras Networks.

Finally, the IPTV revolution also will reach into businesses, via services such as videoconferencing, video SMS and interactive voice and video response (IVVR), said Bill Bryant, director of marketing for Dialogic. The company will be demonstrating IVVR, which is expected to have appeal among the health care services and the insurance industries, as well as videoconferencing and video ringback tones for mobile phones.