Swisscom AG (SGSN.VX) Wednesday unveiled some of the new technologies it hopes will give it a competitive advantage over market newcomers like Google Inc (GOOG) and Apple Inc (AAPL) in the Internet Protocol television market.

The Swiss telecoms company hopes new products will help it increase subscribers for SwisscomTV, its Internet Protocol TV product, and prevent customers defecting to other players when they launch in Switzerland probably next year.

"You cannot stand still in this industry, too many things happen, and we don't want to be left behind," Britta Reinhardt, Swisscom's head of business innovation told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview at the company's innovation day in Berne, where it exhibits new technologies and products.

Among the projects on display, not all of which will eventually go to market, was Person Recognition TV, which uses an internal camera to recognise who is sitting in front of the television and personalizes the experience accordingly.

Another service called VIPER enables customers to communicate through high definition video on their home television set.

The company thinks the importance of television will increase and that video calls on TV will bring families together.

"You can feel like people are there in the same room with you and share moments in their life," Reinhardt said.

Swisscom, which is collaborating with Intel Corp (INTC) and Skype on some projects, believes a larger range of services is key to increasing customer loyalty.

The TV packages could also increase the number of subscribers to Swisscom TV which has nearly doubled its subscribers in the last 12 months to 358,000.

Reinhardt said one of the technologies most likely to be launched is a mobile secure identification system to go in the SIM cards of mobile phones.

She said Swisscom is working with rivals Sunrise Communications AG and Orange, the Swiss unit of France Telecom (FTE), to develop the system and advanced prototypes are already being tested.

The system, which could enter the market next year, aims to provide third parties with easy to use authentication, encryption and signing capabilities and could be used for services such as Internet banking.

Other products included a digital signage in a box, which allows retailers to personalise their shop window display to their customers and offer personalised offers when they are spotted by a digital camera.

-By John Revill, Dow Jones Newswires; +41 43 443 8042 ; john.revill@dowjones.com
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