Symmetricom announces the new Q-400 IPTV Probe. The probe delivers carrier class, cost-effective and scalable end-to-end network performance visibility and quality assurance for service providers offering triple play services, including IPTV and VoIP. It enables quality of service assurance for the core network and quality of experience using Symmetricom's V-Factor® to provide visibility to IPTV service quality just as a user is experiencing it in real time.

Broadcom Corporation announced a new impulse noise protection technology that enables carriers and OEMs to dramatically improve voice, data and video services to their customers. The new impulse protection solution, marketed as Broadcom PhyR (pronounced "Fire") technology, incorporates Broadcom's industry leading ADSL2+/VDSL2 firmware and provides a significant improvement in residual bit error rate as well as resistance against impulsive noise, resulting in a vastly improved user experience for subscribers of telecommunications triple-play services. Broadcom's new PhyR technology will be demonstrated at next week's NXTComm 2007 show in Chicago, Illinois.

EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering announces the release of a suite of IPTV quality-of-service test capabilities for its successful Packet Blazer Ethernet test module product line.

EXFO's FTB-8510B Packet Blazer has established the standard for portable IPTV testing with a series of industry-leading features like 100-channel parallel monitoring capability and the support of ETSI TR 101 290 metrics as outlined by digital video broadcast measurement guidelines. This new software suite also includes user-configurable alarm thresholds for media delivery index and other key IPTV metrics, as well as customizable test sequences. In addition, a unique stream discovery capability that automatically identifies valid IPTV streams within the Ethernet layer and links them to user-definable stream names is available, thus simplifying overall QoS analysis for field technicians.

Kasenna announces that it has teamed with HP and Intel to complete a one-million-IPTV-subscriber benchmark test for broadcast television and bandwidth- intensive VOD services. The benchmark test proved that an IPTV infrastructure developed by Kasenna, together with HP and Intel, can support one million subscribers.

The IPTV-infrastructure test-bed, built around Kasenna's Portal TV product suite, consisting of the LivingRoom middleware platform and MediaBase video server software, utilized industry-standard HP ProLiant servers powered by Intel low-power Dual-Core Xeon processors. The test was conducted in a simulated access network environment at the HP Communications, Media and Entertainment Solution Center in Grenoble, France.

Ixia has announced the ability to generate and analyze IPTV video traffic over emulated IP network topologies. Using the new Aptixia IxNetwork 5.20 application running on the Optixia hardware platform, test engineers can now test the routing control plane and simultaneously stress the data plane by directing both real-world video traffic and packet-based network traffic over the emulated topologies. The end result is a test tool that can better characterize the performance of routers/switches that deliver IPTV services by emulating all critical network elements prior to deployment.

Shenick Network Systems released version 4.0 of its diversifEye software. diversifEye 4.0 will work with both Shenick's diversifEye and diversifEye10G and features a new look user interface UI to facilitate greater ease of use and productivity improvement testing such as bulk testing for large scale triple play video, voice and data scenarios. Users can conduct IPTV channel change testing that emulates live head end IPTV channel feeds with real video of any codec type facilitating monitoring of both standard and high definition TV channels. In addition, the new UI offers an easier and intuitive work environment for test personnel.

Brix Networks and HwaCom Systems of Taipei Hsien, Taiwan, announced the integration of Brix Networks' IPTV Quality Agent into HwaCom's HC-100 set-top box that gives service providers the ability to collect video performance information, metrics, and provides at-home visibility into providers' IPTV services.

HwaCom's STB with the Brix IPTV Quality Agent lets service providers monitor IP video and network quality -- including highlighting the performance of the IPTV and multicast infrastructure, performing continual or on-demand diagnostics of the STB, and quantifying the user channel change experience -- for operational, troubleshooting, and customer care applications.

Ixia announced its latest product today, the IxLoad 3.20 IPTV/Triple Play test solution. The IxLoad 3.20 is their first product to support the key codecs for HD-video: MPEG-4, H.264, and VC-1. Furthermore, IxLoad 3.20 supports MPEG-4 video over both existing MPEG-2 transport streams and native MPEG-4 transport to allow testing of HD content regardless of how it is delivered.

Brix Networks has launched a new a new blog devoted to discussion and information sharing regarding quality of experience (QoE) as it relates to next-generation voip, IPTV, data, and mobile services.

The site – www.ServiceAssuranceBlog.com – was created to foster a continuing dialogue and an exchange of ideas among those who are interested in advancing the quality of VoIP, IPTV, and other IP-based services. As these new offerings are increasingly rolled out to consumers and businesses, it has become imperative for service providers to validate performance levels, deliver a positive user experience, reduce subscriber churn, and increase revenue through the use of end-to-end converged service assurance.

We'll be keeping an eye out as to how often Brix Networks keeps the new blog updated and for interesting news bits.

Shenick Network Systems has launched diversifEye10G, the single module 10 Gigabit per second stateful IP application traffic tester. For the first time, equipment manufacturers and network operators can test and perfect their IP services at an application, network and user quality of experience level in 10 Gbps environments before new and upgraded services are offered to end users.

Juniper Networks, Inc. and Intelliden, Inc. announced that they will deliver a Dynamic Network Automation solution for high bandwidth IP services. By integrating Juniper Networks Service Deployment System (SDX-300) platform and Intelliden's Dynamic Resource Provisioning solution, the joint DNA solution will link end-to-end policy and real-time network resource management by extending intelligence to the network core. The DNA solution will help communications service providers deliver broadband services with enhanced quality of experience (QoE), greater service reliability and higher scalability while containing operational costs.

Alcatel-Lucent has chosen Agilent as a formal test and measurement (T&M) partner for its IPTV ecosystem. The partnership will enable collaboration to ensure that new IP-based video deployments meet end-to-end service-quality expectations.

Alcatel-Lucent's IPTV ecosystem includes the following Agilent equipment:

• The Agilent N2X multiservices test solution
• The Agilent J6900A triple play analyzer
• The Agilent FrameScope Pro hand-held instrument

Spirent Communications announced that it has signed a major contract with TELUS, a national telecommunications company in Canada, to provide triple play service assurance solutions. The contract provides TELUS with tools to ensure the quality of experience (QoE) of its triple play service customers.

Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) has extended its PIQUA software with its first implementation in media gateways for carrier networks. TI's PIQUA system of IP quality management elements enables service providers and carriers to deliver an advanced level of quality to consumer and business subscribers migrating to Internet and IP-based services. With TI's PIQUA elements embedded in equipment at both the customer premise and the network, consumers using IP-based services -- such as Voice over IP (VoIP), Video over IP, IPTV and Internet-based music -- will realize exceptional quality and performance with their IP applications.

QoSmetrics announced the availability of two new hardware probes, the NetWarrior 200 (NW200) and NetWarrior 101 (NW101). The products are designed to offer carrier-grade, cost-effective and scalable end-to-end network performance visibility and assurance for service providers offering Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP).