July 26, 2010

Alcatel-Lucent Optimizes Microsoft Mediaroom for Small Telco IPTV Play

Alcatel-Lucent is targeting Tier 2 and Tier 3 telcos with a new IPTV turnkey solution that uses Microsoft Mediaroom middleware. Indiana-based provider Cinergy MetroNet today launched the service in six Indiana cities, reaching approximately 50,000 potential customers.

Alca-Lu's logic is that the smaller-telco market has had a difficult business case to deliver video and has been underserved, to date. Geeta Chaudhary, VP of Alcatel-Lucent’s Multimedia Integration Services group, said previously with the Mediaroom platform, the most scaled-down version used 120-150 servers, which could service up to 100,000 set-top boxes.

"We took the Microsoft design, brought into our labs, and further optimized that architecture," Chaudhary said. Now with the new, virtualized server design, about 10 servers can service from 1,000 to 100,000 set-tops.

Other benefits of the small-scale solution are less cables and fast time to market. Chaudhary said with 120-150 servers, there were hundreds of cables. With 10 servers, "this is virtually a cableless solution," adding, "we reduced time to market to almost 90 days for a solution of this size."

“We want to provide our customers superior service and access to such capabilities as whole home DVR, interactive applications and over-the-top content,” said John Cinelli, CEO of Cinergy MetroNet, in a statement.

Cinergy MetroNet plans to offer its customers multimedia services such as broadcast TV blended with Web content; the ability to simultaneously record multiple shows while watching another; and the delivery of personalized content such as weather, traffic and news.

The Alcatel-Lucent IPTV offer - called the Integrated Solution for Microsoft Mediaroom - is further optimized when deployed on HP BladeSystem with HP Virtual Connect technology, reducing the complexity of the architecture and increasing flexibility to respond to change in workload demands.

As part of the Mediaroom license, operators can choose an option to include pre-integrated OSS.

-Linda Hardesty