Indiana's Rochester Telephone has selected TANDBERG Television as its video head-end provider for a new IPTV service over Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) that will serve its Indiana ILEC footprint.

The Rochester Telephone agreement marks the 9th TANDBERG Television IPTV deployment in the state of Indiana. The TANDBERG Mediaplex-20 system is the super video head-end platform for the Indiana Video Network (IVN), a consortium of eight independent rural telephone service providers that provide video services. The TANDBERG iPlex platform is the edge video head-end for local program encoding and channel addition for some IVN members.

Rochester Telephone has built an MPEG-2 video architecture with two Mediaplex-20 video head-ends because of the high-bandwidth capabilities of its fiber network. "We chose the Mediaplex head-end, after receiving several bids, because of its high-density, modular design, high quality of the HD and the experienced team approach between all of the suppliers to make interoperability work and give us all the services we wanted at an affordable price," Mr. Riggle continued.

Rochester today provides voice and data to nearly 6,000 households over 250 square miles and has installed fiber to the premise to 80% of its subscriber base. About 20% of Rochester's subscribers are dispersed in rural areas, and the company is extending its fiber build to them over the next three years. Rochester is preparing for commercial launch of the IPTV service during the fourth quarter, 2006.

"Rochester Telephone has built a state-of-the-art video head-end, which gives the company complete flexibility and control to offer high definition television (HDTV), personal video recorder (PVR) service and an extensive channel line-up that provides tremendous choice for subscribers," said Jim Olson, executive vice president of corporate development, TANDBERG Television, Inc. "We're very proud to support independent telephone companies like Rochester Telephone, who are leading the IPTV revolution in the US."

"We've been providing telephone service for 110 years to this region and have very loyal customers who are thrilled to get their video programming from us," said Ron Riggle, vice president of operations, Rochester Telephone. "We want to offer them a state-of-the-art triple play service, including voice, long-distance, 150 channels of standard definition national and local programming, 8 channels of HDTV premium and local programming, PVR and Caller ID on the television. With affordable, high-quality video compression from TANDBERG Television, we will truly leverage the power of our new FTTP network to offer an exciting IPTV service with excellent customer care that meets or exceeds the experience that cable can offer."