Announcements are pouring out of the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam this week. Here’s a glance at what’s making news there as the show heads into the weekend:
* UPC Broadband, Europe’s largest cable MSO, has launched a wideband field trial (market not disclosed) in tandem with Cisco Systems Corp. and its Linksys and Scientific Atlanta divisions. The demo at the show is producing shared download speeds of 120 Mbps, though the modem configuration in place could produce up to 300 Mbps, the companies said. The trial will feature the Cisco uBR10012 CMTS, the SA DVP XDQA24 Edge QAM, and wideband modems from SA and Linksys that can bond from three to eight channels.
* Amdocs got a follow-on contract from Jupiter Telecommunications. J:COM, the largest cable provider in Japan, signed an agreement to extend its existing contract with Amdocs through 2009. Amdocs has been working with BillingSoft Japan to supply J:COM with billing and subscriber management support for the past 10 years.
* Mixed Signals Inc. said it will offer its bevy of network monitoring gear and software to cable, satellite and IPTV operators in the EMEA region. Mixed Signals, which has a global reseller agreement with Tandberg Television, has a flagship network management system called “Sentry,” and just introduced “Medius,” a system that can remotely administer and consolidate information for up to 15 Sentry devices – enough for a typical large headend.
* Casa Systems Inc. is using IBC as a springboard for the C2200, a cable modem termination system (CMTS) that employs channel bonding features that are key to the recently issued DOCSIS 3.0 specs from CableLabs. At the show, Casa is demonstrating a three-channel bonded, 100 Mbps application using the MC232 cable modem from NETGEAR. Casa said the C2200 is slated to ship in early 2007.
* RGB Networks is expanding into Europe with a DVB version of its video processing gear and to help operators deal with the management of digital video streams based on MPEG-2 and H.264 encoding schemes and high-bandwidth services such as HDTV and video-on-demand.
* Nordiva, a Danish developer of IP-based video apps, has integrated its middleware platform with the Concurrent Computer Corp. MediaHawk 4000 video server. Elsewhere, Ortikon Interactive Ltd. has teamed its on-demand service management system with Concurrent’s MediaHawk server line. Ortikon specializes in software and services based on DVB, MHP, IPTV, as well as “tailored solutions” for OCAP and the DVB-H standard.
* Scopus Video Networks said a consortium of Romanian cable companies has selected the vendor’s digital broadcast gear to support “MAX-TV,” a service that will support north of 50 channels. The Digital Cable System (DCS) group is deploying three Scopus encoding and stat muxing systems in two primary headends that are both located in Bucharest. DCS, comprised of about 30 cable companies, has more than 40,000 subs, and expects to have 80,000 by year-end.
* Magyar Telecom of Hungary hopes to expand its reach via the deployment of Harmonic Inc.’s FLXLink system for apartment buildings and other multiple dwelling units. Magyar Telecom operates optical networks that serve roughly three-quarters of Hungary’s population, but will leverage Harmonic’s gear to add wavelengths to serve buildings or individual customers.
