Lucent Launches IPTV Platform

Lucent Technologies Tuesday launched MiViewTV, a multimedia platform for delivering IPTV services and other interactive applications.

MiViewTV is “tightly coupled” with Lucent’s IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) product to provide broadcast TV, video-on-demand, Web content, video games and telecommunications services tailored to individual subscribers.

Lucent said MiViewTV is able to support “hundreds of thousands, even millions of users.”

The software is based on code developed by Spanish telephone company Telefónica for its Imagenio IPTV service, which claims to have nearly 300,000 subscribers.

"With MiViewTV, Lucent is giving operators a powerful set of capabilities that they can use to truly differentiate themselves and move beyond basic broadcast TV to become a multimedia entertainment and information portal for their subscribers," said Rob Piconi, vice president and general manager for Lucent’s Broadband Solutions group, in a prepared statement.

"The interactive capabilities of the platform, coupled with the personalization and 'community' feature enhancements, will give subscribers a unique entertainment experience not seen in the market today," he added.

Lucent said its developers are integrating MiViewTV with the company’s IMS Service Enhancement Layer, developed by its Bell Labs research arm, to support the "blending" of multiple services across service domains to be able to handle new composite multimedia applications.

That integration, according to Lucent, will make possible new services such as interactive caller ID on TV, with controls like video pause; instant messaging on TV sets; and the ability to transfer an IPTV session to a mobile device.