Time Warner Offers Businesses IPTV Suite
Operator Offers 10-Channel News Package In New York Metro Area
By Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News, 10/3/2007 8:53:00 AM
Time Warner Cable is now offering a 10-channel package of live TV networks, including CNN, CNBC and Fox News Channel, delivered over the Internet to business customers with cable-modem service in the New York City area.
The full suite of networks is: NY1 News, CNN, CNN Headline News, CNN International, CNBC, CNBC World, Bloomberg TV, Fox News, Fox Business News, and The Weather Channel. FBN launches on Oct. 15.
Time Warner Cable Business Class of New York & New Jersey, the cable company’s commercial arm in the region, said the BusinessLink.tv service delivers video via cable modem to customers’ enterprise local area networks over IP multicast connectivity.
The 10-channel IPTV delivery service requires a 4 megabits per second core LAN bandwidth capacity, the company said. It uses existing IP networks and transmits video to Macs or PCs.
“Real-time news straight to your desktop. And avoid the buffering,” reads a promotional message on the company’s Web site.
Pricing varies depending on the number of computers involved and delivery methods, the company said. The same is true of a 100-channel IPTV product.
To get BusinessLink.tv, a Time Warner Cable business class customer must either connect to Time Warner Cable's high speed data network or one of the company’s fiber based solutions for transport of the video. It’s available throughout the entire local service area to buildings capable of accessing the HFC or Metro Ethernet network. Time Warner Cable has about 42,000 business customers in the region.The software-based platform runs on existing hardware and standard operating systems, the company said, “with minimum network resource utilization and a combined audio and video stream to ensure perfect synchronization.”
Time Warner Cable has tested delivery of cable programming, via Internet protocol, to computer devices within the home. But a test in the San Diego area demonstrated insufficient demand to merit a residential service at this time, company officials said early this year.
