DVD facing an early grave

The DVD format will be nothing more than a flash in the pan, according to the chief executive of Alcatel.

Speaking at the opening of the Alcatel Forum in Paris, Serge Tchuruk told delegates that cheap and widely available broadband services will sound the death knell for the popular storage medium.

Recent network price drops are just the start of a longer term trend that would see video downloading kill off the DVD, he claimed.

"The DVD will be short lived," said Tchuruk. "This kind of video was a passive exercise. Today things need to be much more interactive."

He added that, while the price of broadband had halved in the past two years, capacity has increased fivefold. This is going to drive a wave of data services, both mobile and fixed, through what Tchuruk described as "user-centric broadband".

As a result telecoms companies will have to shift from being voice dominated to concentrating on services to generate revenue. Tchuruk added that voice still accounts for more than 70 per cent of telecoms revenues.

However, it is in the mobile services that Tchuruk sees most promise. Delegates were told that mobile voice and data services had a two or three times price premium compared to fixed services.