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June 5, 2007
This weekly e-mail newsletter covers everything related to Telco-IP Television.
Verizon Previews FiOS Guide
Verizon Communications is offering a “sneak peak” at its new interactive-media guide for FiOS TV, touting the software’s visual features, responsiveness and usability.
Verizon will first roll out the IMG, as the company refers to the guide, in Fort Wayne, Ind. Spokeswoman Sharon Cohen-Hagar said the guide will be deployed throughout rest of the FiOS TV footprint over the course of the summer.
The telco announced the media guide in January, when it said customers in New Jersey would be the first to receive the new TV applications. Cohen-Hagar said it has conducted trials with the guide in the state and is on track to go live the next few months.
The IMG features hierarchical, tabbed menus and a search function that spans TV channels, video-on-demand titles and digital-video-recorder recordings. The VOD section includes movie-poster art (also viewable in a list) and provides trailers for some titles.
For entering text, the IMG provides an on-screen keyboard, a scroll wheel or “cell-phone style” entry (using the letters on a number keypad). IMG includes interactive-TV applications, called Widgets, that offer weather and traffic reports based on ZIP code.
Verizon also claimed that the guide has very low latency, responding to a remote-control command in less than two-tenths of a second.
Other enhanced features for IMG are still in development, such as allowing viewers to rate programs and then providing personalized recommendations of TV shows.
Verizon initially struck a deal to use on-screen guide software from Microsoft. However, last year, the telco took over virtually all of the development of IMG internally. Separately, Comcast this month said it would replace the Microsoft IPG in Washington state with one the cabler created itself. Meanwhile, Verizon recently announced it licensed IPG-related patents from Gemstar-TV Guide International. Under the terms of that agreement, the two companies will jointly develop a
solution to let FiOS TV customers remotely schedule recordings on their DVRs using TV Guide’s listings.
In other Verizon news, the telco is now taking orders for FiOS TV in the Rockland County communities of Orangetown and Piermont, N.Y. Verizon now offers FiOS TV in 70 New York communities.
And the company launched FiOS TV in parts of Baltimore County, Md., where it will compete against Comcast. The telco said FiOS TV is now available to more than 425,000 households in Maryland.
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AT&T Pitches San Diego on U-verse TV
AT&T said it launched U-verse TV service in San Diego and surrounding areas, where it will try to wrest customers away from two incumbent cable companies in the market, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications.
The telco initially will offer U-verse TV in parts of San Diego, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Chula Vista and San Diego County, increasing availability on an “ongoing basis.”
AT&T in March won a statewide franchise to offer video services, and last month launched in the Greater Los Angeles area, where it’s targeting Time Warner.
In Northern California, U-verse TV is available in the San Francisco and San Jose markets.
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IPTV Debuts in Big Apple
MSTI Holdings reached an agreement with CSI Digital to offer the first-ever IPTV service in New York.
The companies said the service “will initially include 300 plus channels in MPEG-2 and 4 formats including the most HDTV offerings, the most popular basic- and premium-cable networks and the greatest variety of ethnic programming, local stations and a plethora of all-music channels.”
MSTI is a communications technology company that specializes in video to the desktop, videoconferencing, distance learning, two-way data, and Internet-access services, while CSI Digital is a nationwide provider of content and communications services.
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Amdocs Can in Kazakhstan
Kazakhtelecom, the largest telecommunications operator in Kazakhstan, will use Amdocs’ billing and mediation solutions to support its delivery of next- generation services.
The company will deploy integrated and unified billing system Amdocs Charging 7 and Amdocs Service Mediation Manager 7.
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• UTStarcom will integrate Optibase's advanced H.264 Media Gateway 5100 IPTV-encoding platforms in its end-to-end RollingStream IPTV solution for deployment with Aksh in India.
• Content from Private Media Group is now available on Club Internet in France as part of the IPTV provider’s Club Internet 3 triple-play offer.
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