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| First U.S. offering of HDTV over IP network TelcoTV -- BigBand Networks, Inc., a leading provider of broadband multimedia infrastructure for video, voice and data, announced that leading independent telecommunications holding company SureWest Communications expanded its use of the BigBand BMR (Broadband Multimedia-Service Router) to facilitate the first commercial delivery of HDTV over its IP-based FTTP (fiber-to-the-premise) network. SureWest currently utilizes the BigBand BMR to enable over 240 channels of live video and music programs, pay-per-view, and conversion of multimedia content for IP distribution. SureWest leverages functionality that controls channel line-ups, enhances video quality and boosts bandwidth efficiency. "One of the key factors in our original decision to standardize on the BigBand BMR was its extensible and scalable architecture, " said Bill DeMuth, SureWest's vice president and chief technology officer. "We knew that using the IP FTTP service delivery model provided flexibility and cost-effective bandwidth efficiency to not only deliver HDTV, SDTV, voice and data services, but also to extend interactive television capabilities. The BigBand BMR has been as fundamental to offering new HDTV services as it has been in our earlier digital video launches, and it provides us with a platform upon which to continue launching new feature-rich services." HDTV over IP has become a reality, moving from labs into a broad production environment as the final stage leading up to SureWest's commercial HDTV deployment. This was achieved in part by extending the functionality of an already implemented BigBand BMR infrastructure. The BigBand BMR receives separate variable bit rate satellite video feeds combined within a multi- program transport stream with control over each one's carriage on the operator's network. Each program is adjusted to a constant bit rate, re- multiplexed and encapsulated within a UDP-IP stream for delivery over an IP network. This functionality is designed to assure efficient, reliable and jitter-free video transport within available bandwidth in compliance with access network and subscriber device tolerances and protocols. "SureWest has stayed at the forefront with new and pioneering ways to expand and improve services, which is evident with this first launch of HDTV over IP, " said John Connelly, BigBand Networks' executive vice president of marketing and business development. "Since BigBand Networks was originally chosen to provide the SureWest digital headend platform, it has been clear that they are interested in providing subscribers with a rich variety of innovative video, voice and high speed data services. This new offering showcases the BigBand BMR platform's ability to cost effectively extend functionality to support SureWest's pioneering delivery of HD traffic over IP networking." write your comments about the article :: © 2005 Networking News :: home page |