ATLANTA--There’s now a choice of access technologies for service providers that want to deploy Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV. Calix announced this morning that it has established a licensing relationship with Microsoft that will enable its technology to interoperate with the Microsoft platform.

The move also indicates Microsoft’s interest in a broader market among service providers for Mediaroom, which had largely targeted Tier 1 service providers, partnering exclusively with Alcatel-Lucent on the access technology side.

When the TelcoTV trade show opened Tuesday night, Calix was demonstrating the delivery of Microsoft Mediaroom over its Calix C7 platform using 2.5 GPON and ADSL 2+ technology and over the Calix E5-120 using VDSL 2 access technology.

“Access providers have a choice now, and that’s important,” said Geoff Burke, director of field marketing at Calix. “Microsoft isn’t necessarily a closed platform, but it hasn’t been available to other partners before now.”

While Microsoft and Calix have a licensing and interoperability agreement, Microsoft Mediaroom will be selling the technology, Burke said. The software giant has shown recent interest in the smaller telco market, after launching its IPTV system with major multinational players such as AT&T, Deutsche Telecom and others. Last week, Microsoft announced its first U.S. independent operator, nTelos, a rural Virginia LEC and CLEC.

At the time of that deal, the company issued a statement saying its strategy for selling in the U.S. had not changed. Burke sees to move to sell to a wider range of telecom service providers, including independents, as a natural evolution of the market.

“It’s clear they are interested in telcos beyond the Tier 1s,” he said. “Calix can be a key player for them in that one out of every three [broadband access] networks in the U.S. is Calix-based. We have large footprints down to the smallest IOC. Microsoft had optimized their system for very large networks, but they now see the opportunity to enable that in smaller networks – it’s very much a natural progression of the technology.”

Calix and Microsoft are a natural fit, Burke said, because the Calix systems have the capacity to support high-end applications and the Microsoft Mediaroom technology is “a capacity and through-put intensive system.”