IPTV Service Assurance Testing; IPTV Perfect Storm
Alcatel-Lucent IPTV Ecosystem Findings Reinforce Spirent(R) Communications' Approach to IPTV Service Assurance
Spirent Communications plc SPM (LSE:SPT), a global provider of performance analysis and service assurance solutions, announced today that results from a white paper published by the Alcatel-Lucent on the IPTV Ecosystem for MSTV, support the company's unique testing and diagnostic solutions and the critical role they play in ensuring IPTV services and subscribers' quality of experience (QoE).
The white paper, titled "IPTV Test and Measurement Best Practices White Paper," identified the need to generate measurements that go beyond traditional network performance monitoring, such as jitter and loss, and to include video content analysis in order to ensure a superior IPTV subscriber QoE. According to the results, "due to added quality, optimizations in MSTV, generic standard measurements do not always produce an accurate reflection of video quality," Spirent's SmartSight solution is highlighted in the paper as the only ecosystem partner to demonstrate a comprehensive end-to-end remote testing and diagnostic capabilities. In addition, the white paper outlines the requirement for strategically placed probes within the network and states, "due to accuracy concerns or scalability concerns an operator should put equipment in the network specific to service assurance." Spirent's SmartSight is the only IPTV service assurance test system on the market today that enables remote diagnostics from the DSLAM to capture accurate subscriber experience data based on content analysis rather than just network performance indicators.
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?Feed=BW&Date=20070521&ID=6933168
Cable operators facing IPTV 'perfect storm'
"The integration of IP video services into cable TV infrastructure is the result of a convergence of market forces," said ABI Research vice president Stan Schatt.
"The main driver is the threat from the telecoms operators, whose IP network configurations are allowing them to offer more dynamic services.
"As well as moving to IP to counter this threat, the cable operators aim to up the ante by incorporating mobile voice into their bundled offerings as quickly as possible."
"The consequences for equipment vendors will be enormous. North American cable operators collectively spent more than $80bn on network upgrades in recent years, and they will now have to spend freely once more," said Schatt.
"The change to IP video affects not only core head-end equipment, but the set-top boxes found in every household served by cable. This is going to create a huge equipment turnover."
http://www.activehome.co.uk/vnunet/news/2190332/cable-operators-heading-iptv
AT&T Does IPTV
A 3 minute tutorial on how AT&T plans to deploy competitive cable television service using IPTV with VDSL over 40 year old copper wire. Then again, there may be a better route.
http://media.revver.com/qt/275324.mov
