* Everstream seeks expansion
Everstream, a data collection and reporting company purchased by Concurrent Computer Corp. for $15 million, said it expects to increase its Cleveland, Ohio-based staff by 50 percent to keep up with customer wins in 2005 and 2006, and to expand into new markets.
Everstream presently has 45 employees, and expects to ramp up to 65 or 70 within the next six months. The company noted that it is looking to hire database administrators, business analysts, project managers, quality assurance specialists and account managers.
The company said it presently collects data from over 18 million digital subs in 180 markets with customers such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, EchoStar Communications and J:COM of Japan.
* ARRIS TeleWire names operations VP
ARRIS TeleWire Supply has appointed Leia Liberatore to be its vice president of operations, overseeing supply chain management strategies. Liberatore has more than 15 years of experience in the cable industry, including stints at Adelphia and Comcast.
* Harmonic enables single frequency network transmission over IP
Teledifusión Madrid, a digital terrestrial television provider in Spain, has deployed Harmonic’s stream processing platform for what Harmonic says is the world’s first single frequency network (SFN) broadcast transmission over an IP network. Teledifusión Madrid is using Harmonic’s Electra encoders to transmit content from studios to its central headend, where the ProStream 1000 aggregates the services into DVB-T transports, which are then distributed over IP to the various transmitter sites and received by local ProStream 1000 systems.
* Vidiom taps cable vet to lead strategic efforts
David Housman has joined OCAP and iTV specialist Vidiom Systems as vice president of strategic initiatives. Housman has 25 years of technology and business development experience in the communications industry, the last 10 at Charter Communications.
At Charter, Housman provided strategic guidance over new business opportunities as well as oversight for the development and deployment of Charter’s high-speed data services and advanced set-top boxes including DVRs.
* DirecTV orders more MPEG-2 gear
DirecTV has placed an $8 million order for new MPEG-2 compression gear from Thomson’s Grass Valley division, as the DBS provider looks to expand the capabilities of its broadcast complex.
DirecTV started initial deployments of Grass Valley’s “ViBE” platform in 2003 to support local-into-local services.
In terms of DirecTV’s MPEG-4 strategy, it has leaned heavily on encoding gear from Tandberg Television.
* Lindholm joins BigBand
Jeff Lindholm has been named SVP of worldwide field operations for BigBand Networks.
Lindholm, who reports to CEO Amir Bassan-Eskenazi, joins BigBand from Juniper Networks, where he most recently served as chief marketing officer.
