Acterna announced its NetComplete ^TM Service Assurance solution for IPTV that enables communications service providers to meet and exceed their customers' expectations of receiving high-quality and reliable IPTV services, improving network efficiency and reducing customer churn. Deploying IPTV, which must meet the high quality expectations consumers have for video services, requires sophisticated service assurance tools and procedures, such as those found in NetComplete, to quickly identify and prevent sources of degradation.

Acterna, the leader in test and management solutions for consumer and business broadband communications, is introducing its NetComplete IPTV Service Assurance solution, as well as solutions for VoIP and Metro Ethernet, at SuperComm 2005, booth #43021, June 7-9.

"This is a revolutionary time for providers racing to address the complex challenges involved in deploying IPTV with uncompromising quality and reliability to meet customers' high expectations," said Roger Lingle, vice president of marketing for Acterna's Service Assurance Solutions division. "Acterna's NetComplete IPTV service assurance portfolio delivers on-demand testing and performance monitoring with end-to-end coverage. It also allows providers to pursue the deployment of IPTV services with the proactive quality management and troubleshooting needed to address impairment issues that could affect the IP video viewing experience."

Performing on-demand testing and troubleshooting of video signal performance, ensuring the quality of content at critical hand-off points, and verifying video and transport streams, Acterna's comprehensive approach to proactively monitoring IPTV via NetComplete allows providers to perform several important test and management functions that assure the content and quality of TV signals carried over the IP network. For example, it provides end-to-end monitoring, test and troubleshooting from the video head end, through the delivery of the TV signal, to the end user.

For top-flight IPTV service performance, the signals entering the network must be accurate and of very pure quality. NetComplete helps ensure this quality by conducting video head end/hub office monitoring of the video sources, and identifying poor quality content prior to the signal entering the IP network. Once the signal enters the service provider's IP network, NetComplete also provides comprehensive video over IP transport monitoring to proactively identify degradation sources that could compromise the TV signal being delivered to the end user. Finally, NetComplete proactively identifies service delivery issues by actively emulating the user and making channel change requests.

NetComplete's IPTV capabilities are a part of Acterna's Service Assurance Solutions (SAS) division, which provides "triple-play" next generation network operators with a robust modular portfolio of independent and interoperable solutions to enable end-to-end triple-play service management across their converged broadband IP infrastructure.