NRTC

NRTC gets HBO, Cinemax IPTV rights

Dan O'Shea — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:58:25 -0400

The National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC) has forged a long-awaited agreement with Home Box Office (HBO) that will allow rural IPTV carriers to offer a range of HBO and Cinemax standard-definition and high-definition programming. The video distribution agreement grants NRTC members rights to 26 HBO and Cinemax MPEG-2 SD offerings and 26 MPEG-4 HD feeds, as well as subscription video-on-demand rights.

NRTC and the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association partnered last year to help their small-market members get access to studio content that otherwise might be too expensive for them to pursue on an individual basis. The programming now offered through the program includes more than 350 video and audio channels.

For more:
- see this NRTC press release

Kentucky telco calls on Dr. DSL

Dan O'Shea — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:53:09 -0400

West Kentucky Rural Telephone Cooperative, based in Mayfield, Ky., has tapped vendor Aware to supply the telco with its Dr. DSL Line Diagnostics Platform to support its IPTV service and other broadband services. The product is a line testing solution that is server-based and provides centralized monitoring and analysis.

Craig Sullivan, plant superintendent for West Kentucky, said in a press release that the testing solution, "works seamlessly with our installed Occam BLC equipment, enabling us to ensure the service levels and troubleshoot the subscriber lines of our new bandwidth-intense broadband and IPTV service offerings." The solution is aimed at helping ensure service quality, but also at cutting costs associated with troubleshooting and repairs.

West Kentucky RTC has about 18,000 customers, and last year gained some measure of fame for being among the original beta customers for the National Rural Telecommunication Cooperative (NRTC)-sponsored IP Prime initiative to bring IPTV to more rural customers.

For more:
- see this press release

Telcos go live with IP-Prime

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:59:50 -0400

IP-Prime is officially live. As FierceIPTV reported last week, the turnkey IPTV platform provided by two telco lobbies and SES Americom is available commercially. North Central Telephone Co-op of Lafayette, Tenn., became the first non-beta telco to launch IP-Prime. North Central is upgrading to a hybrid plant consisting of 5,000 feet of copper lines and fiber-to-the-home beyond, using loops supplied by Occam Networks in Santa Barbara, Calif.

West Kentucky Rural Telephone Co-op, a 19,000 subscriber telco in Mayfield, Ky., and BEK Communications, a 6,000-sub system in Steele, N.D., went commercial this week with IP-Prime. Both had been beta test sites for more than a year. Two more beta sites are scheduled to go commercial later this year.

The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association and the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative came together with the satellite distributor in Princeton, N.J., two years ago to develop the IP-Prime offering so small carriers could launch IPTV without extensive build-outs or fierce programming negotiations. The two lobbies together represent nearly 2,000 local phone companies and rural utilities.

Telcos can opt for the entire MPEG-4 infrastructure, right down to the set-top boxes, or just the programming, which originates from SES Americom's Vernon Valley, N.J., facility. The programming option is attractive because negotiation with the likes of Fox and Disney can be brutal. Keith Galitz, president and general manager of Canby Telecom in Canby, Ore., has pegged programming as his IPTV operation's biggest expense. Galitz also said he'd be looking at IP-Prime to take Canby MPEG-4, and thus, HD capable. That's one less advantage for cable.

For More:
- The word from NRTC and NTCA is here
- Multichannel News has the summary of North Central's launch here

Related Article:
On the Hot Seat wit Keith Galitz Report

National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative's Forrer: IP-Prime to go prime time

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:24:44 -0400

Today, FierceIPTV presents coverage of the opening keynote, graciously presented by Madeleine Forrer, vice president of Video Services for the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative. Forrer elaborated on IP-Prime, the long-awaited IPTV platform developed with smaller telcos in mind.

IP-Prime goes prime time

Madeleine Forrer is unphased by IPTV naysayers.

"In 1994, if you would have said DBS would become as ubiquitous as cable, you would have been laughed out of the room," she said. "We believe IPTV will become the third great competitor.

Television delivered via closed network in an Internet Protocol format has variously been presumed to be "buggy, expensive or even impossible," she said.

Rural telcos, however, are making it work, and one NRTC member is leasing hi-def TV sets to its subscribers, she said. Others are among the first TV providers deploying MPEG-4 set-top boxes.

"IPTV is setting the tone for what can be done and viewers want to be done," e.g., bringing together localized content, video-on-demand and even online video, she said.

Forrer delivered the keynote address at IPTV Evolution in Los Angeles today, the opening day of ITExpo at the city's convention center. Forrer's perspective comes from spending more than two decades in the TV space, from launching channels on cable systems to acquiring programming for a set-top startup. She's now vice president of the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative located in Herndon, Va., where she secures programming deals for IP-Prime, a turnkey, MPEG-4, IPTV platform for small telcos.

IP-Prime, a joint effort of SES Americom, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association and the NRTC, was launched at a telco site Monday, Forrer said. Details will be released Monday, according to a spokeswoman at NRTC.

IPTV FOR ALL

Forrer said that when the rural telco lobbies met with SES Americom, the goal was "to find a way to take a multimillion dollar problem and scale it down to a manageable size … We had to make IPTV accessible to telcos with 10,000 access lines, 5,000 access lines, 2,000 access lines."

The result was IP-Prime, one of a handful of IPTV platforms that allows telcos to launch the service without having to install a head-end or other costly infrastructure.

"This is ideal for companies in initial stages of IPTV," Forrer said. "We believe we've come up with a solution that works incredibly well in our marketplace, all the way up to 100,000 subscribers."

Forrer said telco plants meeting certain technical criteria can go from voice to IPTV service in 16 weeks with IP-Prime. SES, NRTC and NTCA provide everything--marketing, training, operational support, video, platforms and set-tops.

"IP-Prime is as close to turnkey as you can get," she said.

The system uses Scientific Atlanta set-tops and Myrio middleware. Some telco operators, notably Keith Galitz of Canby Telecom in Canby, Ore., have had problems with Myrio. Forrer said the IP-Prime group is also working with NDS Metro and Minerva, or IP-Prime can simply provide program drop-off if a telco wants to build their own head-end and use their own middleware.

The programming-only package is also available for MPEG-2 providers or others with existing head-ends.

Forrer said a DVR-enabled set-top would be available shortly, and a video-on-demand service within a few months.

"We're also talking to walled-garden providers about local weather, news, games … all delivered to TV screens," she said.

Forrer said she envisions a model where online video can be accessed on TV. Any content that crosses a telco plant "is well-suited to deliver to the set-top box."

Forrer concluded with a quote she attributed to avionics engineer Charles Kettering, who invented the electric starter, "We have a lot of people revolutionizing the world right now because they've never had to present a working model."

She also noted a survey that indicated 25 percent of American consumers are ready to check out IPTV when it becomes available.

"So here we are," she said. "We're in the place where telcos can compete with cable."

FEATURE: IP Prime to go prime time

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:58:45 -0400

IP Prime to go prime time

Madeleine Forrer is unphased by IPTV naysayers.

"In 1994, if you would have said DBS would become as ubiquitous as cable, you would have been laughed out of the room," she said. "We believe IPTV will become the third great competitor.

Television delivered via closed network in an Internet Protocol format has variously been presumed to be "buggy, expensive or even impossible," she said.

Rural telcos, however, are making it work, and one NRTC member is leasing hi-def TV sets to its subscribers, she said. Others are among the first TV providers deploying MPEG-4 set-top boxes.

"IPTV is setting the tone for what can be done and viewers want to be done," e.g., bringing together localized content, video-on-demand and even online video, she said.

Continue reading this feature here...