NDTC ramps up IPTV service
Jan 30, 2007 8:00 AM
North Dakota Telephone Company (NDTC), headquartered in Devils Lake, ND, is putting in place a carrier-grade IPTV headend to deliver local television stations to subscribers.
One of three equity partners in IP-video headend Dakota Video Network in Park River, NDTC will use the Optibase MGW 5100 to produce H.264, MPEG-4 Part 10 compressed video and audio content for distribution via ADSL 2+ and active FTTP networks. NDTC's Optibase headend will receive and process the local channels aggregated with 80 television channels of content transported from Park River via Ethernet over SONET OC-48 for local distribution to NDTC customers.
IPTV Update spoke with Rich Ellison, network services manager for NDTC, about the company's implementation of the system and where IPTV service is headed.
IPTV Update: Could you please describe your involvement with Dakota Video Network and how you plan to augment those services locally with Optibases's IPTV headend solution?
Rich Ellison: NDTC is owned by three other telephone companies. NDTC and two of our owner companies joined in purchasing a headend and a private transport network. Some programmers allow their content to be received and hauled on a shared headend network, and others won't. We use the shared headend network for the content that we can. Additionally, we each have separate smaller headends to receive the content of the programmers that will not authorize their content on shared facilities. We chose Optibase for ours.
IPTVU: Are you competing against cable operators for multichannel video service subscriptions in your service area, or is the competition primarily from DTH satellite?
RE: Though we have not yet deployed our video product, when we do, we will be competing with cable operators. We already compete with them in voice and data, so we do view them as our primary competition. We won't disregard the satellite providers, though, as they do have a large presence in the area we intend to serve.
IPTVU: Are any of the 80 channels from DVN or the channels you are adding high definition?
RE: Not at this time. There are still some issues with the equipment we need in order to deliver HD. We hope we'll be able to offer HD later in the year.
IPTVU: How much bandwidth do you plan to devote to HD transport? SD transport? And why?
RE: In our FTTH deployment, we don't have a big concern about the bandwidth we need for SD or HD in the future. Looking down the road to using our DSL platform to deliver video, we are taking steps to design our network to be able to deliver adequate bandwidth to do SD very well. HD will, of course, take some extra effort, but with MPEG-4 and the DSL improvements we're seeing, we should be able to do a good job with HD as well.
IPTVU: How extensive is your FTTH deployment?
RE: We started with our biggest exchange in Devil's Lake, which might be turning things around. A lot of people go on small exchanges to learn the ropes and then move on to their bigger ones. But that's where we were seeing all of our competition was in our biggest exchange.
We went in and put an active fiber to the home platform in place, and we're still in the process of converting to it. We've got probably a third of the plant we are installing turned up and in service now.
IPTVU: How important was MPEG-4 Part 10 H.264 in choosing to augment your video offerings?
RE: There are definitely some concerns with when STBs will be available. It sounds like they will be available soon. In choosing a headend, though, MPEG-2 wasn't a consideration. The investment needed in a headend is too great to go with anything but MPEG-4 at this time.
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