Several factors were key in this northeastern Kansas telephone company's decision to choose APMAX IPTV middleware from Innovative Systems. However, according to Tri-County Telephone Association's General Manager, Dale Jones, putting the customer experience first above everything else was their main goal in making the decision.

Jones stated, "The capabilities that the Innovative solution gives us to reach out and touch the customer from our back office to help them over the phone is critical in the customer experience. Without having to send out a service technician, which takes time and costs more, we are helping our customers in a timely manner and reducing our own operating costs."

Jones likes the fact that Innovative Systems is continually growing their products with new features to help the rural telco market stay on top of a very competitive market. Jones advises other telcos to look to companies that are thinking outside the box especially when it comes to video. Jones says, "Today's business is nothing like it was in the past, if you are going to attract and retain video customers you have to give them the technology that is going to drive that experience."

Operators looking to deploy IPTV and Video on Demand will benefit from faster, lower-risk implementations that enable them to offer more services to users through a major partnership between Dune HD and Beenius announced today at TelcoTV2012. This will be demonstrated on the Beenius booth (number 105) at TelcoTV.

As part of the partnership, Dune HD’s advanced set-top boxes have been certified by Beenius and are now integrated with Beenius’ Beesmart open, flexible, and feature-rich interactive TV middleware platform. Together this provides an adaptable, integrated and best of breed solution to operators and system integrators, backed by the engineering expertise of both partners.

Netgem announced that Sure has partnered with Netgem to launch a new hybrid IPTV service for its customers in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

By working with Netgem, Sure has been able to make use of its broadband network to deliver Over the Top live and non-linear content to a hybrid STB. This means the operator can now add premium TV to its bouquet of services and offer its customers triple and quad play packages.

The new service is powered by Netgem's N8200 hybrid PVR integrating its nCloud middleware; subscribers will benefit from a brand-new TV experience that supplements UK DVB-T2 free-to-air channels for popular non-linear entertainment content and a fluid and consistent user interface.

Innovative Systems has been chosen as the IPTV Middleware vendor for Integra Telecom, the telecommunications provider serving customers in Prior Lake, Savage, Webster,Elko and New Market communities.

"Integra is committed to providing first-class solutions to our customers, and we continue to look forproducts such as Innovative Systems' IPTV Middleware that meet growing customer demands," said Mary Korthour, vice president and general manager of Integra Telecom, Prior Lake, "Integra needed a Middleware product with features such as whole-home DVR, on-screen Caller ID and remote DVR programming access that would keep Integra competitive now and in the future."

Entone announces that TriCounty Telecom has selected its FusionTV solution to power the delivery of Hybrid TV services throughout eastern North Carolina.

Entone's FusionTV solution combines traditional broadcast TV with over-the-top content and cloud-based services. With FusionTV, TriCounty Telecom delivers a differentiated pay-TV service that increases the average revenue per user and subscriber satisfaction.

For over 57 years, TriCounty Telecom has been a leader in providing a comprehensive portfolio of communications services to several communities across eastern North Carolina. To continue with its track record of providing innovative services to its customers, TriCounty Telecom has recently embarked on an ambitious FTTH build to support advanced IP services.

Amino announces that BeeSmart has developed a middleware that is fully compliant with its enhanced IPTV/OTT set-top box range.

BeeSmart, based in Slovenia, has developed a strong market position in Europe, where Amino has an extensive network operator and hospitality customer base. Combining an exceptionally fast user interface, intelligent content recommendation system, VoIP on TV and OTT support, BeeSmart's middleware has the ability to host multiple operators on a single service delivery platform.

Ericsson will provide a range of video processing solutions and support services to NBC Olympics, a division of the NBC Sports Group, during its coverage of the 2012 London Olympic Games from London, England July 27 – August 12, 2012. The announcement was made today by David Mazza, Senior Vice President, Engineering, NBC Olympics, and Staffan Pehrson, Vice President and Head of TV, Ericsson.

The Ericsson solution is helping to deliver NBC Olympics’ HD content across both contribution and distribution feeds to ensure the highest picture quality from the Olympic venues to millions of viewers in the United States. Ericsson is providing a range of products including MPEG-4 AVC encoders, professional receivers, multiplexers and satellite modulators as well as a team of support engineers in both London and New York. These engineers will assist in equipment/system set-up, maintenance and troubleshooting ensuring no great sporting moments are lost in transmission.

WTC has chosen the APMAX Middleware Solution from Innovative Systems as they transition their cable video plant over to IPTV.

According to Tom Lynn, WTC's Vice President, "With the many options and impact that middleware has on the customer experience, we wanted to check out references from existing providers. What we found was a number of references stating the simplicity of the Innovative product from a management standpoint and an aggressive roadmap for future functionality." Lynn added, "The deal breaker for us was the fact that these U.S references had previously used middleware from other vendors and were quite satisfied with their decision to switch to APMAX Middleware."

Comtrend announces that Matanuska Telephone has selected Comtrend’s HD Video Extender (WAP-5834) for wireless distribution of HD IPTV video services within and throughout subscribers’ homes with wire-like quality. MTA has deployed over one thousand HD Video Extenders with tremendous success.

Comtrend’s HD Video Extender is a solution to the great challenge of traditional home networking where telcos needed to pull CAT5 wiring throughout the house to connect televisions for IPTV service. With the advancement in wireless technology embodied in the HD Video Extender- beyond the 802.11n standard- installers can now completely bypass hardwiring and plug in wireless adapters for no-distortion IPTV service.

Accedo Broadband, the leading provider of applications for IPTV and Connected TV, today announced the launch of a TV app for the 2011 Tour de France. The IPTV app, which has been developed by Accedo Broadband for Australian broadcaster, SBS, is available to download on 2011 models of LG Smart TV and Blu-ray devices.

Pace announces a partnership agreement with Minerva. The worldwide agreement will integrate Minerva xTVFusion middleware technology into Pace's HD set-top boxes, expanding the range of IPTV middleware and technology delivery options available to service providers.

The partnership will allow Pace to offer a pre-integrated end-to-end solution to service providers across its global customer base. It will enable operators to seamlessly integrate IPTV services into the broadcast offering and provide a cost effective satellite and cable television delivery solution across Europe and South America.

After a thorough review process, Ronan Telephone has chosen Innovative Systems to deliver IPTV middleware for their new video system that will serve their cable television subscribers in western Montana.

"Our relationship with Innovative Systems goes back a long time and we have always appreciated the customer service. One of the things we were really sold on with the middleware is the Virtual Remote and its ability to take control of a subscribers set top box.," said Ronan's President and operations Manager, Rosa Tougas. Tougas also added, "Having an APMAX in place for our enhanced voice services was also a factor in our decision. We liked the idea of delivering voice and video from one piece of hardware with built-in redundancy and subscriber management tools. IPTV is quite complicated and having a single vendor delivering so many pieces was very attractive for our company."

Imago Group has announced a new initiative for the IPTV market sector. Breeze Technologies, the MPEG and IPTV solutions developer, represented exclusively by Imago in Europe, has formed a new partnership with French IPTV middleware provider, Vianeos, which will allow the two companies to deliver an ‘IPTV in a box' solution.

The agreement was finalised at last month's IPTV World Forum in London and brings together Breeze Technologies' TVIUM DVB-T set-top box, which captures and distributes digital TV and radio across the IP network, with Vianeos's Octopus middleware solution that allows customers to manage all the multimedia content distributed across their IPTV network.

Netgem announces that it now offers a comprehensive turnkey solution to allow operators to deploy advanced IPTV services in any country with a short time to market.

The new solution is targeted at operators and service providers around the world, whether green field or looking to upgrade existing infrastructure, that wish to bring new digital TV and video services to their subscribers. Netgem is able to use its IPTV 2.0 approach to meet growing user demands for web enriched and multi-screen content by offering a seamless mix of broadcast TV and IP services across all screens within the connected home.

Dreampark announces a new customer in Finland, Alcom, the leading IPTV operator on Aland. Alcom is swapping out a competitor's middleware solution and replacing it with the Dreampark Dreamgallery middleware.

Alcom, had high demands for performance and user experience that wasn't being matched in their current middleware solution. Dreamgallery allows Alcom to focus on delivering a fast and feature-rich service to their customers with no disruption while securing the traffic through Alcom's own backbone system.