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MPEG-4, HD will keep telcos competitive

Dec 12, 2006 8:00 AM

SES AMERICOM’s Walt Davis says IP-PRIME delivers IP encapsulated MPEG-4 content to telcos via satellite to help IPTV operators reduce the expense and sophistication of their headends.

With all of the press Verizon and AT&T get for their fiber-based IPTV services, it’s sometimes easy to overlook the thousands of smaller independent telcos nationwide that plan to use their existing copper infrastructure to deliver video in an effort to stay competitive with cable operators that are targeting their core voice business with VoIP.

Satellite service provider SES AMERICOM sees an opportunity to service those newcomers to video distribution with an aggregated line-up of national cable networks as IP-encapsulated MPEG-4 streams for their new IPTV services.

Offering the service gives the company a valuable perspective on the state of IPTV deployment and the issues service providers are facing as they scramble to make video over their networks a reality. IPTV Update turned to Walt Davis, SES AMERICOM IP product management director, to glean a bit of insight.

IPTV Update: Please describe SES AMERICOM’s IP-PRIME service.

Walt Davis: The primary service is geared for telcos getting into the IPTV business. We saw a couple of problems the telcos faced: One is how to acquire and distribute IP encapsulated MPEG-4 signals. For IP PRIME, we can aggregate all the national cable channels into our teleport facility in Vernon Valley (NJ).

We bring in the programs in their native format, which is either MPEG-2 or analog. At Vernon Valley, we do all the transcoding to MPEG-4, all the IP encapsulation in our facility and then we transport those signals over one of our satellites, AMC-9, and make them available to telcos. So, the headend that a telco has to install is relatively modest and inexpensive as opposed to the telco building a full-blown MPEG-4 headend.

The second problem IP-PRIME resolves is local distribution of IPTV. Beyond the headend, IP-PRIME offers the managed solution. We have tested and integrated middleware, CAS (conditional access system) and set-top boxes, and we certify interoperability of their products so we can deliver an end-to-end solution all the way to the consumer’s STB. The benefit to the telco is that they can avoid the rather painful process of integrating middleware, CAS and the set-top.

IPTVU: Could you elaborate a little on how the drop-in solution deals with digital rights management issues?

WD: We're working with NDS, through which we provide end-to-end CAS. We actually manage the encryption out of our Vernon Valley facility for the managed solution, so it’s a complete end-to-end industry-standard, AES-based CAS/DRM solution.

IPTVU: Obviously, cable companies are competing intensely with telcos by offering voice-over-IP services, and telcos are looking to IPTV service to help protect market share. That doesn’t automatically make them experts in video. Is SES AMERICOM offering any support in that regard?

WD: That's one of the key advantages of IP-PRIME. I have some personal experience with a telco that went through this process. The seductive message that a telco hears — a telco that perhaps today already has a DSL service — is that video is just another service over a DSL network. That's a dangerous trap to fall into because video is a completely different service offering.

The IPTV technology is new, but cable and other providers have set the customer-expectation of the service quality throughout the years. The picture quality has to be spot-on all the time. It has to be a very robust service from day one — no outages. Part of the value in IP PRIME, the managed solution, is a working end-to-end solution. Again, we certify interoperability in our lab. We work with our vendors directly to integrate all of these products together. IP-PRIME is the closest thing to a drop-in solution for a telco.

But, clearly there are other areas that the telco needs to cover. There's the whole issue of marketing, customer service and installation; the whole support and maintenance issue. They have to roll the trucks just to install these products, so it's not a slam-dunk for telcos, but it does offer fast time-to-market with a proven solution.