Telco IP Update - 10/02/07 - Multichannel News

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October 2, 2007

TOP STORY: AT&T Seeks Connecticut Certification, Lights Up Houston
Litigation: Vonage Dealt Setback In Two Patent Cases
On the Front Lines
· FiOS TV Expands in N.Y., Massachusetts
· Verizon to Deploy IPv6
· RGB Tackles Telco TV
· Brix Intros IPTV Monitoring Platform
One-Liners

This weekly e-mail newsletter covers everything related to Telco-IP Television.

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Top Story AT&T Seeks Connecticut Certification, Lights Up Houston

AT&T filed an application with the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control to become a “certified competitive video provider,” a new designation provided for under a state franchise-reform law, while the state’s attorney general continued to oppose treating the company any differently than incumbent cable providers.

The telco claimed the law, which took effect Oct. 1 after being signed into law this summer, provides “the regulatory clarity needed for AT&T to continue its previously announced $336 million network investment and bring new choice to cable customers.”

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he will ask the DPUC to reject AT&T’s franchise application because the law does not guarantee that all residents will have access to the Internet Protocol TV service. “This new application by AT&T seems to accept that they must seek a franchise, but makes a sham of meeting the franchise requirements,” Blumenthal said, in a statement. “All citizens should have access [to U-verse] – not just residents of wealthy or readily served areas.”

Separately, AT&T said it is now offering U-verse TV to 400,000 homes in the Houston area, taking on the newly rebranded Comcast system there. The telephone company, which first rolled out Internet Protocol TV in the Bayou City in November 2006, currently offers service in parts of communities in Brazoria, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris and Montgomery counties.

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Litigation Vonage Dealt Setback In Two Patent Cases

A federal appeals court last week upheld a ruling that Vonage Holdings infringed two patents held by Verizon Communications, a day after a federal jury in Kansas City, Kan., found the Internet-voice provider had infringed six Sprint Nextel patents. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Sept. 26 affirmed an injunction issued by a lower court judge in March with regard to two Verizon patents, but reversed the judge’s ruling on a third patent. As such, the appeals court vacated the March 8 damages of $58 million and 5.5% royalty rate on future revenues a jury awarded to Verizon because the award did not specify which portion of the damages was attributable to which patent. The appeals court sent the case back to the district court to determine the amount of damages and royalties to be awarded to Verizon.

In the Sprint case, a U.S. District Court jury ordered Vonage to pay $69.5 million in damages. Vonage said it plans to appeal that ruling.

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Brief FiOS TV Expands in N.Y., Massachusetts

Verizon Communications kept up the push into New York City’s suburbs -- and put more heat on Cablevision Systems -- announcing last week that it is now taking orders for FiOS TV in seven additional New York communities. The telephone company’s TV service is available in parts of the Westchester County communities of New Rochelle and Cortlandt; in the Rockland County villages of Haverstraw and Suffern; and in Long Island’s Garden City, Poquott and Nissequogue. Cablevision is the incumbent cable provider in each of those towns.

Verizon also launched its FiOS TV product in Medway, Mass., which counts about 3,500 households. The telco is now selling FiOS services in 55 Massachusetts communities.

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Brief Verizon to Deploy IPv6

Verizon Business said it will deploy the Internet's next-generation protocol -- known as Internet Protocol Version 6, or IPv6 -- on the company's public IP network over the next 18 months around the world.

The deployment will allow customers to connect to the IP backbone using the IPv6 protocol, which offers significantly more Internet addresses than the current IPv4 standard. The federal government has ordered its agencies to become IPv6-capable by June 2008.

Verizon Business began its first phase of deploying IPv6 in 2004. The unit said it expects to complete the North America region in 2008 and move into the Asia-Pacific and European regions from late 2008 to 2009.

The company will operate both IPv6 and IPv4, in a "dual stack" arrangement, on its multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) network core. The company also has deployed IPv6 throughout its network access points (peering facilities) where Internet service providers exchange traffic.

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Brief RGB Tackles Telco TV

Video-processing equipment vendor RGB Networks is targeting telephone companies with a “carrier-class” headend product (http://email.multichannel.com/cgi-bin2/DM/y/hA0MKiQu0A0DNEt0El that supports both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding formats.

The Modular Video Processor (MVP) supports various applications and features RGB has developed for its MPEG-2 products, including the ability to switch and groom custom channel lineups using content from multiple program sources and inserting local advertisements into programs. The MVP can incorporate up to 12 individual processing or video-interface modules in a 13-rack-unit chassis. Each video-processing module is capable of processing “hundreds” of programs simultaneously, according to RGB.

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Brief Brix Intros IPTV Monitoring Platform

Brix Networks introduced its Internet Protocol (IP) service-assurance platform, the 4100 Verifier, which provides real-time monitoring of live voice and IPTV traffic. The company said the platform can scale up to handle network speeds of 10 gigabits per second.

Using the company’s BrixWorx central-site software engine, network operators can establish thresholds for various performance metrics to proactively alert operations staff of voice or video quality degradations or service outages. The initial members of the Brix 4100 family, including the Brix 4100 Verifier and the Brix 4104 Verifier, are available now. The company said pricing varies based on the scope and scale of an operator's deployment.

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One-Liners

• Verizon Wireless will begin selling Motorola’s MotoRizr Z6tv phone on Oct. 5, the first phone from Motorola to support the operator’s live V CAST Mobile TV service.

• The Walt Disney Co. said it will shut down its U.S.-based mobile virtual network phone service, offered through Sprint Nextel, at the end of the year, concentrating instead on “a new business model” for content and services that may be offered through a partnership with a major U.S. wireless carrier.

• Occam Networks, a supplier of Ethernet and IP-based loop carrier equipment, struck a deal to acquire certain assets and to assume certain liabilities of Terawave Communications, a manufacturer of Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) equipment.

• Content-security provider Verimatrix said Qatar’s Qtel is using the Verimatrix Video Content Authority System to protect MPEG4/AVC data streams as part of the telecom company’s IPTV service.

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