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Viodi View Newsletter – February 28th, 2007
Click here to learn about Viodi’s Local Content Workshops
By Ken Pyle, ken.pyle at viodi.com, Managing Editor, Viodi View
- ViodiTV @ NTCA
- Culture & IPTV
- ACE Promotes Industry Standards
- IPTV Standards – Is It Too Late?
- Meanwhile 6,000 Miles Away – An Open Standards Approach to Broadband
- Fiber to the Arctic Circle
- Searching for a Better Way to Find What’s On TV
- OEN Launches in Houston Suburb – An Exclusive Audio Interview
- Cautionary Warning – Telecom Means Telecom
- Opportunity to Weigh In on Vertical Integration of Programming
- IEEE ComSoc Feb 21, 2007 meeting on Metro-Scale Mesh Networks
- S2 Data’s IPTV 2007 – A Global View of IPTV from Silicon Valley
- People on the Move
- Recent Club Viodi Posts
- The Korner – Will We Ever Get an Answer on Universal Broadband?
The term digital divide is somewhat trite, but the problem still exists. According to Parks Associates , at least 45% of the U.S. residential households will not have broadband in 2007. This hit home a few weeks ago, when I found that a family on my son’s Tee-Ball team does not have broadband or narrowband Internet access. In 2007, it is a bit painful to communicate with someone who is off net. This personal example prompted me to think about Universal Service and its relationship to other government programs. Read more in the Korner.
There is a great example of a group of people who formed a cooperative to bring telecommunications services and broadband to their underserved community. We will bring the video of interview with one of their founders in the next issue.
In the meantime, check out this interview with Allen Hoopes, President of Silver Star Communications. Silver Star has been bringing broadband, video and telephony to remote parts of Wyoming. Hoopes talks about the challenge of culture as an impediment to the deployment of new technologies, especially IPTV. Click here to view
ACE Promotes Industry Standards
One of the big challenges for IPTV Deployments has been standards. Standards have always been important to the Rural Utility Service, which provides various forms of financing for rural telecom. ACE, the Association of Communications Engineers, together with OPASTCO and NTCA are supporting RUS in their efforts to update their standards. Check out this video with Charlie Watts for more detail.
IPTV Standards – Is It Too Late?
An interesting quote from Verizon’s Marilyn O’Connell, Sr. VP of Video Solutions, in which she suggested that it may be too late for telcos to put together standards and interoperability for IPTV. From the January 29th issue of the Multichannel News:
“It may be too late for an “IPTV Labs” she added. Even though telcos work together on setting technical standards in a number of forums, their approaches in assembling a TV service have been divergent. “Until somebody determines a very standard path, you have vendors working on a one-off solution, and then it’s hard for them to generate revenue from that solution,” O’Connell said.
Of course, Verizon has taken a hybrid RF-IPTV approach, which is migrating towards an OCAP based solution.
Meanwhile 6,000 Miles Away – An Open Standards Approach to Broadband
Jari Aho of ACREO, a group that provides a test bed for various technologies associated with broadband, reports the results of their latest meeting. The PDF he provided reminds me of the Open Video System alternative that never really took off in the U.S; an approach, whereby the last mile is pretty much a common carrier provisioned by multiple service providers.
Northport AB is delivering, in conjunction with Motorola (Set-top), Latens (security) and Tandberg (headend), an IPTV solution to Salten Bredband, which serves 3,000 customers north of the Arctic Circle . A bit of an ecosystem is building up around this solution, as Northport AB has just integrated with a Swedish company, System Magic, which provides IPTV applications, like chat, email and games. Salten Bredband, owned by a group of energy companies, is replacing their current operating system with the Northport AB solution
Searching for a Better Way to Find What’s On TV
One of the things when I learned years ago at DemandVideo is that the content owners – the big studios especially – want to be able to establish their own brands and relationships with the customers (whether the brands mean as much as the actual product is another question). One significant thing about Seachange’s announcement last week of their latest patent is that they have developed a way for brands to create their own portal with a television user interface, as shown in this screen shot.
Image Courtesy of SeaChange International
The other significant thing about their patent is that makes television search contextual and weaves together on-demand and linear broadcast into common areas of interest. The idea is to help filter the thousands of hours of content into what is relevant to the individual consumer.
OEN Launches in Houston Suburb – An Exclusive Audio Interview
Optical Entertainment Networks made a big splash a few years ago when they announced an aggressive plan to deploy Fiber to the Home throughout the Houston metro area. OEN President and CEO, Al Estrada, an early veteran of DirecTV, discusses OEN’s strategy for rolling out service in this exclusive audio interview. He talks of their beta tests and some of the things they learned and have incorporated into their commercial launch, such as data packages that offer up to 25 Mb/s downstream. Click here to read more and listen in to this interview.
Telecom@NAB2007 Broadband Video Conference
Monday, April 16: 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Tuesday, April 17: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
As telecom companies deploy video, the best place in the world to learn about video production and distribution is the annual NAB Convention. NAB is NOW the essential destination for any service provider deploying digital video services. Just ask telecom’s competitors, the cable and satellite industries . . . they have been attending NAB for years. * Email * First Name * Last Name Business * = Required Field
The Video Business Case for Independent Telcos – The Report
Viodi’s report, Video Business Case provides results to a survey of independent telcos and their business case for video. Most of the telcos that responded to the survey have figured out a way to deploy video services. This survey provides insight from the independent telcos as well as several of their Engineering firms.
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