Cisco inks key rural IPTV deal
By: By Ed Gubbins
Cisco Systems is vying to become a one-stop shop for rural telcos planning to offer IPTV. The vendor announced a partnership this week with SES Americom,...
CES: Microsoft unites IPTV, Xbox 360
By: By Carol Wilson
Microsoft gave IPTV a major shot in the arm Sunday night, when Bill Gates used his traditional Consumer Electronics Show keynote address to announce the company’s plans to integrate its Microsoft TV IPTV software with its Xbox 360 gaming console....
CES: Verizon launches Vcast TV, FiOS 2.0
By: By Carol Wilson
In a major press event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and in a Webcast, Verizon today announced the first live TV broadcast service for mobile phones as well as the next generation of its FiOS TV service – promising to leave cable “in the dust” with its new video prowess....
In the spotlight: Siemens’ Harald Braun
By: By Carol Wilson
Harald Braun brings a high-level energy to any conversation about telecom. As President of Siemens Communications Networks Division, he’s also looking at the big picture, and to kick off 2007 he came up with his own list of seven major trends. He spoke with Editor-at-Large Carol Wilson on his “Seven for 2007” list...
Carriers tell IBM security matters
By: By Tim McElligott
More than half of the top-tier carriers attending a recent carrier summit hosted by IBM Internet Security Systems said their security concerns are strong enough to impede their rollout of new IP-based services and the completion of their triple-play strategies for voice, video and data services...
Cisco caches in on IPTV
By: By Ed Gubbins
Cisco Systems is adding new capabilities to its 7600 series routers to better serve IPTV applications, the company said...
Juniper’s IPTV plans advance
By: By Ed Gubbins
A new software release on Juniper Networks’ SDX-300 Service Deployment System this week is helping fulfill the vendor’s architectural vision for triple-play networks, one that promises more efficient use of networks...
In the Spotlight: Scott Ulsaker, Pioneer Telephone Cooperative
By: By Dan O'Shea
Scott Ulsaker, director of operations at Pioneer, is an old hand at wireless, having worked on AT&T’s Project Angel fixed wireless endeavor. He spoke with Telephony editor in chief Dan O’Shea recently about using Wi-Fi for in-home wiring...
Tut irons out MPEG-4 set-top wrinkles
By: By Ed Gubbins
Tut Systems is working through the kinks that stalled the availability of its MPEG-4 set-top boxes for high-definition television (HDTV). Though the vendor was unable to fulfill orders for those set-tops in the second quarter due to problems with middleware and conditional access functions, those problems are now being resolved, according to multiple sources...
TelcoTV: Eatel deploys Integra5
By: By Dan O'Shea
DALLAS--Eatel, a private, independent telco based in Ascension Parish, La., has deployed Integra5’s i5 Converged Service Delivery Platform to support TV-based caller ID and other applications from the vendor’s i-Communicate application suite...
TelcoTV: Content control conundrum
By: By Dan O'Shea
DALLAS--Two general session panels this morning at the TelcoTV conference and expo presented both sides of an IPTV content conundrum: Will carriers maintain “walled garden” approaches to content or more open Internet-inspired attitudes?...
TelcoTV: Content developer acquisitions unlikely
By: By Dan O'Shea
DALLAS--Content company executives for the most part don’t believe in the possibility that telcos could acquire or invest in studios and other content developer to help them create exclusive content for their IPTV efforts...
Writing the book on IPTV quality
By: By Dan O'Shea
Service providers now rolling out IPTV services probably would not agree with the notion that they are making it up as they go along, since that would be an insult to the strategists and technicians who have put hours upon years into the ongoing transformation of telcos into video providers. Yet when you consider how the industry is approaching quality of service for IPTV, it's difficult to come away with any other impression, at least at first glance...
IneoQuest fills quality management gap for IP video
By: By Tim McElligott
IneoQuest, a five-year-old test solutions company based in Mansfield, Mass, introduced a premises-based quality assurance solution for IPTV this week as well as an end-to-end video management system...
Comptel: TI unveils residential gateway products
By: By Carol Wilson
ORLANDO--Texas Instruments this morning announced five new solutions for manufacturers of residential gateways, based on its UR8 processor architecture. The new xDSL chips are aimed at enabling maximum flexibility and functionality in the design of residential gateway products...
A Telephony Podcast: Fall VON Recap
This year’s Fall VON show expanded on its traditional focus on voice over IP to encompass video, in the form of both IPTV (the topic of Telephony’s IPTV Workshop at the show) and video on the Net. Telephony’s Carol Wilson delineates the two and analyzes the future of both IP video and VoIP in the service provider sector...
VON: Vertek’s new MBA program no sheepskin
By: By Tim McElligott
BOSTON--To be successful in business often requires an MBA degree, but at Fall 2006 VON, Vertek introduced an MBA program for business partnerships. The hosted Managed Business Assurance program ensures the profitability and viability of partnerships formed for the delivery of new digital content services...
Harmonic intros new MPEG-4 encoders
By: By Ed Gubbins
Harmonic introduced a new MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) standard-definition (SD) encoder today...
InFocus: Ensuring IPTV quality
By: By Marc Todd, IneoQuest Technologies, Inc. and Shane Broyles, Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc.
For Telcos, deploying IPTV in remote areas is a market sweet spot – it offers customers the perfect blend of choice and services and it’s often an area unsupported by cable providers. The challenge for many Telcos is to provide customers with the same or better quality of video that they expect from their broadcast or satellite providers...
In the Spotlight: Diane Smith, Auroras
By: By Tim McElligott
Diane Smith is CEO of Auroras. Auroras is a start-up that is about to commercially launch its head-end-in-the-sky (HITS) after a trial with 3 Rivers Communications and others. A HITS is a satellite-based content distribution system for IPTV. IPTV content has been hard to come by. Smith talked to Telephony’s Tim McElligott about her company, how she got there and why the time is right for a company like Auroras, even if it is way out in Kalispell, Mont....
Leapstone provides must-have options for IPTV
By: By Tim McElligott
At a pace of three-to-four software releases per year, five-year old, Somerset, NJ-based Leapstone Systems introduced its latest this week, which includes functionality essential for all U.S.-based IPTV providers: blackout management...
Yankee: Wireless not IPTV-ready yet
By: By Carol Wilson
Despite the high-cost of installing in-home wiring to support IPTV, service providers aren’t yet ready to trust wireless solutions, according to Yankee Group research....
Cable's IP push may await 2008
By: By Carol Wilson
Cable companies are exploring use of IP to offer nteractive TV services, but face economic challenges that could delay that effort until 2008 or after, said Michael Arden, principal analyst and author of the new study, “Worldwide Cable TV Infrastructure, CPE and Services.”...
Ikanos intros new chips for IPTV
By: By Ed Gubbins
Ikanos Communications introduced a new line of broadband chip sets today that were designed to deliver IPTV and triple-play services...
InFocus: IP Service Awareness
By: By Don McCullough
IP service awareness and control are becoming a critical issue for carriers as they expand early IPTV and triple-play service trials into full-scale deployments. Given finite amounts of available bandwidth, carriers must have real-time awareness and control over quality of service on a customer-specific and service-specific basis. In this article, the author discusses the key requirements for IP service awareness and explains how they are implemented in access networking equipment...
