Verimatrix, the leading provider of content protection and security for the IPTV industry, announced that Telecom Italia France, has selected the Verimatrix Content Authority System (VCAS) for its AliceBox triple play service. AliceBox, which offers unlimited calls to France and Italy, a minimum of 6Mbit/s broadband and up to 100 broadcast channels over the DSL network, was officially launched on 1 January 2006 and is available to all subscribers of the Alice Internet broadband service.

Working closely with market-leading partner, Sagem, provider of the set-top boxes supporting both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC video compression, the VCAS software will protect premium content from TPS and Canal+, providing peace of mind for both operator and content provider. The VCAS software is built on the principles of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and X.509 digital certification to ensure the most robust and secure service possible.

"Access to premium content will be the key differentiator between competing IPTV services as the industry matures and deployments increase in significance," commented Tom Munro, CEO, Verimatrix. "Therefore, it is widely accepted that a robust, scalable content protection system is a minimum requirement for a successful IPTV deployment."

The Telecom Italia France network currently covers approximately 25 percent of the country and the company reportedly aims to increase its broadband subscriber base from the 380,000 homes recorded at the end of June 2005, to 1 million by the end of 2006.

"Moving forward, as IPTV grows in popularity, operators will have to contend with the same theft of service risks which currently blight the cable and satellite industries," concluded Munro. "Verimatrix will continue to invest in higher level security systems -- such as session-based digital watermarking -- which will ensure that operators continue to gain access to the premium content they need to increase their subscriber bases."