NTCA

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

FCC's Martin looking lonely

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:59:40 -0500

Just two weeks after FCC chief Kevin Martin floated his re-regulation of big cable idea, he looks decidedly isolated with fellow commissioners and congressional members of both flavors seriously questioning the move. In Washington, the Cable lobby wasted little time pulling in favors owed and in the days ahead of Tuesday's meeting there has been report after report suggesting Martin is not going to be able to deliver his proposal.

An editorial Monday in the conservative Wall Street Journal featured a long piece denouncing both the methodology and intent of Martin's re-regulation proposal. It began: "With all due respect to Kevin Martin, we're beginning to wonder if the head of the Federal Communications Commission knows the first thing about the cable industry he regulates."

Even the broadcasters--traditionally not a close friend of the cable industry--offered their protest. Ahead of the meeting Martin was trying to salvage something of his plan and how it impacts on both current and new players in the broader video market place was unknown. But having fired both barrels and being forced to back off, Martin now risks joining his president in what could be a long and not productive run up to next year's election.

More Reports:
- FCC plays monopoly Wall Street Journal editorial
- FCC plan at Risk Wall Street Journal Report
- New York Times reports Martin is struggling to get the votes

Related articles:
- Kremlin media regulation Report
- FCC, cable TV debate '70/70' Report

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

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.

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.

Continue reading this feature here...