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IP Capsule – October 11, 2007

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  October 11, 2007 
CED MAGAZINE   
IPso Facto…
 

Numerology
As of June there were 8.2 million IPTV subscribers worldwide, an increase of over 5 million from Brian Santothe midpoint of 2006 – phenomenal growth no matter how you look at it. The biggest leaps were made in Europe and in Asia. The numbers were distributed by the DSL Forum and compiled by Point Topic, which also calculated there are now 313 million people with broadband worldwide.

DSL remains the most popular access technology, with over 200 million of the world’s 313 million broadband subscribers connecting via DSL. Consistent with that, about two-thirds of all IPTV subs are served by a DSL connection.

IPTV subscriber growth
Region H1 2005 H1 2006 H1 2007
Europe 521,000 1,505,000 4,984,000
Asia Pacific 612,000 987,000 2,176,000
Americas 267,000 409,000 1,069,000
Other users 70,000 50,000 0*
Total Worldwide 1,470,000 2,950,000 8,229,000
* “Other users” has been estimated. With more accurate reporting, the
category became unnecessary. Source: Data provided for the DSL Forum by Point Topic

The global market share of broadband technologies remains largely unchanged from December 2006, with almost 22 per cent of subscribers using cable, and just over 10 per cent using FTTx.

Meanwhile research firm MRG identified the companies it says are the market leaders in several IPTV product categories. The company said it tracked the top 120 vendors in 24 regional sub-sectors, covering over 600 IPTV operations.

By MRG’s estimation, Alcatel-Lucent is the top provider of access systems and middleware, Motorola of headend equipment and set-tops, Kasenna of video on demand gear, and Verimatrix of content protection and digital rights solutions.

Total broadband subscribers, broken down by access technology
Top 10 countries, ranked by number of broadband subs
Total broadband subscribers
Source: Data provided for the DSL Forum by Point Topic

Coming on strong, the report said, are Chinese suppliers: Huawei, UTStarcom and ZTE, though first-place industry leaders (notably Moto and Alcatel) were observed to be increasing their leads. MRG said there was plenty of opportunity left.

TelecomView, in a separate report, quantified how much opportunity might be left: $4.5 billion.

“While we found that well known companies such as Motorola, Microsoft, and Alcatel-Lucent will lead this industry” said TelecomView analyst Bob Larribeau. “We also found that less prominent companies such as UTStarcom, Netgem, and Verimatrix are also emerging as industry leaders.”
 
Brian Santo, IP Capsule Editor & CED Magazine Editor
 

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Alcatel-Lucent to supply GPON for Neuf Cegetel
The same week Alcatel-Lucent was identified as one of the leading IPTV suppliers in the world (see IPso Facto), the company said French service provider Neuf Cegetel has been basing part of the high-speed network it is building on Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology that Alcatel-Lucent will supply.

Neuf has purchased Alcatel-Lucent’s 7342 ISAM FTTU (fiber to the user) system, including the new optical network terminal (ONT) in the home. First deployments began this past summer. The FTTU products are part of Alcatel-Lucent’s ISAM family, designed for IPTV and NGN / IMS voice convergence.
 
 
 
 
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Bresnan launches business VoIP 
Bresnan Communications has launched its new Business Line telephone service with Primal Solutions’ commercial VoIP platform. Bresnan, the nation’s 13th-largest MSO, serves more than 300,000 customers throughout Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and Utah.

NEC launches converged multimedia, SIP voice platform
NEC Corp. has released a new converged multimedia and SIP voice platform-the service convergence integrated (SCI) platform-that enables VoIP and multimedia services and offers a small start for operators transitioning to an IMS-based next-generation network (NGN). The platform utilizes a blade-server architecture and bundles a SIP server, an operation and maintenance server, and service enablers.

Iowa co-op provides data/VoIP bundle using Actelis
The Farmers Mutual Telephone Cooperative (FMTC) has deployed Actelis Networks’ Carrier Shellburg, IAEthernet over Copper solution to deliver high-speed Internet and VoIP services to its subscribers in eastern Iowa. Actelis said it supplied FMTC with its ML628 Ethernet Access Devices (EADs) and EFMplus technology.

“Because a large majority of our customers live in rural farmland country and are dispersed over a wide geographic area, we are using Actelis’ carrier Ethernet solution to feed wireless towers and then backhauling the canopy traffic to our network through remote DSLAM cabinets,” said Mark Harrison, general manager at FMTC. “This allows us to efficiently and cost-effectively deliver DSL and VoIP services to valued residential customers who have been out of reach.”

Sprint, Vonage make nice
Sprint Nextel and Vonage settled their ongoing patent dispute and entered into a licensing arrangement. On Sept. 25, a jury in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City found that Vonage had infringed six Sprint patents. The settlement agreement resolves all claims related to this dispute. In addition, Sprint will license Vonage its VOP portfolio, which comprises more than 100 patents covering different methods, components and systems that connect telephone calls between a regular telephone network and a packet-switched network such as the Internet, Sprint said.

BroadSoft, Taqua team to supply IP, VoIP systems
Taqua and VoIP software provider BroadSoft are partnering to help telcos in the U.S. and Canada replace their Class 5 switches with a combination of the former’s switch technology and the latter’s VoIP software. The same system can be used by MSOs to initiate VoIP services. The partners are combining Taqua’s T7000 end-office switching system solution with BroadSoft’s advanced Hosted PBX/IP Centrex, Mobile PBX and Residential Broadband applications.

Sagem picks videophone from Trinity Convergence
Trinity Convergence said its VeriCall Edge software has been licensed by Sagem Communications, which will use the software to provide the SIP-based VoIP calling and H.264 videoconferencing features for an unspecified new multimedia device. VeriCall Edge is designed for VoIP phones, WiFi phones, video phones, VoIP routers and other VoIP-enabled personal communication devices.
 
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Qwest expands wholesale Gigabit Ethernet services to 10 Gigabits
Qwest Communications is preparing to offer, on a wholesale basis, Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) over Ethernet with speeds from 2 Gbps up to 10 Gbps within key U.S. metropolitan markets. The bandwidth is available to any service provider in increments of 1Gbps. .

Residential WildBlue DishWildBlue moves to target business market
WildBlue Enterprise Solutions will soon introduce a bigger dish warranted to provide enterprise customers with more reliable reception of its satellite-based broadband service. The company is also collaborating with gateway manufacturer UDcast to develop products and services for the SMB market.

Meanwhile, WildBlue, XipLink and Trispen Technologies are working to provide a new integrated VPN network for SMBs. XipLink has an appliance said to accelerate delivery, and Trispen has VPN (IPsec) software.

Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: satellite Internet now available 
Hughes Network Systems offering its service in Wal-Mart’s 2,800 stores across the country. The broadband service is targeting customers in rural areas who don’t have access to cable or DSL. HNS can offer download speeds ranging from 700 kbps to 2 Mbps with prices starting at $59.00 a month.

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D-Link, Tropos enter partnership
D-Link’s Xtreme N Notebook Adapters worked right out of the box with a Metro Wi-Fi mesh network set up by Tropos Networks, and that was good enough for a partnership. Tropos will recommend D-Link’s adapters for use with any metro Wi-Fi mesh networks it builds.

Company: WildBlue
Headquarters: Denver
CEO: David J. Leonard
URL: www.wildblue.com

Claim to Fame: Hughes Network Systems was the first to offer broadband via satellite commercially, but WildBlue was first to figure out how to reach the rural residential market.

Recent News of Note: The company has been making moves to target the business market, where HNS has seen its greatest success.