ATLANTA--In the latest in its series of coming-out parties, IP-Prime announced three new telco customers for its IPTV service here at the TelcoTV show today.

Bob Phillips, president and CEO of the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, partnered with the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA) and SES Americom, developer of IP Prime, is announcing in a general session presentation that three rural telcos will use the IP Prime service to offer IPTV to their customers: CenCom of Jackson, Neb.; the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Telephone Authority in Eagle Butte, S.D.; and Home Communications in Galva, Kan.

IP Prime is aimed at rural telcos and brings them either an end-to-end system for delivering IPTV using a centralized satellite-based distribution system including transport, head-end and set-top boxes, or a programming-only solution for telcos that have their own facilities.

Speaking at an IP Prime event at the Georgia Aquarium Tuesday night, Phillips said the service is already in trial deployment by three of the original five beta-test companies and expected to be in trials with the other two shortly. The company announced in July that it was in full commercial deployment and named Valley Telephone Cooperative (VTCI), a Raymondville, Texas-based rural telco, Georgia's Planters Rural Telephone Cooperative and the West Kentucky Rural Telephone Cooperative as those already through trials.

“We have a whole sales pipeline that is very active,” Phillips said. “Companies are in various stages--some are getting their plant ready and working with us on a parallel track to get the service ready. Others are looking at their options, and they like what they see with ours.”

Choice of set-top box and quality of service are key attributes that rural telcos like about the service, said Jon Russo, senior vice president of marketing and product management for SES Americom. “We have been at this service for three years, and we think the quality of the service is unparalleled.”

In some cases, new customers will be those who attempted to offer IPTV ahead of the market and were caught in solutions that were ATM and/or MPEG-2 based, said Kevin McGuire, NTCA’s vice president of business and technology. “Now they are looking at how they can get more value, and this solution gives them a migration path.”

Russo said he believes the market is now at an inflection point, at which the service will start ramping very quickly.