Entone Technologies, a leading provider of personal video content delivery solutions, announced that Pioneer Long Distance (PLD), a subsidiary of Pioneer Telephone Cooperative, Inc., has selected Entone's carrier-class video on demand (VOD) and content ingest workflow solutions to support its IP television (IPTV) service launch. PTC's IPTV rollout covers its entire network of 72 exchanges across the state of Oklahoma, providing up to 33,000 homes with IPTV and VOD services.

To facilitate its ambitious launch, PTC has selected Entone's full suite of VOD solutions for creating, managing, and delivering digital assets. These solutions include:

• StreamLiner ^TM network video recorder (NVR) - VOD server software that turns standard HP and IBM server hardware into the industry's highest performing video servers without the costs, risks, and inflexibility that comes with competing hardware-based solutions.
• Encoding Studio ^TM content ingest system - Market-leading solution for managing the process of capturing, encoding, quality assuring, and staging VOD assets.
• Armada ^TM intelligent asset manager - Dynamic runtime system for distributing and cost-optimizing the placement of VOD assets across a network of video servers.

PTC, the third largest telephone cooperative, is upgrading its entire eight-region network with high-speed ADSL2+ and IPTV services. When complete, it will deliver up to 166 channels of streaming broadcast video and use ADSL2+ to support the viewing of as many as three different TV channels simultaneously per home. PTC IPTV service subscribers can choose from a number of bundled packages that include high-speed Internet access, voice services, and special features, such as On-screen Caller ID.

PTC executives said they chose Entone's products and solutions due to their market leadership position, reliability, strong customer references, and best fit for the needs of PTC's distributed IP network architecture.

"The deployment of our IPTV infrastructure relies on close collaboration with our technology partners," said Scott Ulsaker, Video Business Manager, Pioneer Telephone Cooperative. "We were looking for a server platform that is field proven, scalable, flexible, and cost-effective. After an extensive evaluation of our server options, we found that Entone's StreamLiner NVR platform best meets these criteria."

PTC is using the Entone technology in combination with video headend equipment from Tut Systems, middleware from Myrio, and server hardware from Hewlett Packard. PTC's IPTV service launch includes several Entone VOD servers deployed across multiple operating centers.