Time Broadband Services Pvt. Ltd., an IPTV service provider in India, and Amino Communications Ltd have announced a commercial deal to manufacture AmiNET125 H.264 AVC (MPEG-4, Part 10) compliant Set-Top Boxes (STBs), for the Indian market, through Time Broadband's overseas associate company, Dimensions Broadband UK. The substantial contract, with initial Fixed License fee & on-going Royalty arrangement with Amino, marks their expansion within emerging markets of the Indian sub-continent.

This deal will enable TBSPL to execute mass deployments of its "MY TIME" IPTV Package with the dynamic middleware provided by Kasenna of USA, a very popular and successful product with open architecture working on DHTML. Based on the opinions of the major Hollywood studios, TBSPL has selected Verimatrix of USA as their Content Protection provider which invisibly provides session-based Water Marking to enable forensic tracking of piracy, using highest security levels empowering the TBSPL recommended CDN stack.

The AmiNET125 STB, which is designed on the "Da Vinci" SOC chip from Texas Instruments of USA, is integrated with both Kasenna Middleware and Verimatrix Content Protection enabling TBSL to use these important elements in its state of the art IPTV ecosystem developed around the H.264 AVC technology. This triggered the selection of Amino as the partner to provide IPTV software and the hardware design for the manufacture of STBs by Dimensions Broadband UK, in the defined territories.

Mrs. Sujata Dev, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of TBSPL explains "STBs play the most critical role in the IPTV business, empowering the customer to choose interactive digital content on demand. This relationship with a leading industry partner like Amino would further strengthen TBSPL in establishing the business matrix in the Indian market, capable of providing a total end-to-end CDN solution to Telecom Operator partners intending to launch IPTV".

Time Broadband plans to leverage the combined power of Amino STBs supporting Kasenna and Verimatrix applications to offer its IPTV services to customers across the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and parts of East Africa; to revolutionise home entertainment.

Bob Giddy, CEO of Amino Communications Ltd. stated: "This agreement gives Amino greater access to the tier-1 Telcos in India, a country with a population of over 1 billion having potential to be the fastest growing IPTV market. We believe this deal validates our licensing model, enabling us to sell in key markets where large-scale manufacturing in the local plants is critical to success. Our international experience, and technical expertise with proven solutions, will enable TBSL to provide a globally benchmarked IPTV service using Amino technology. We know that the sleek design and ease of operation of the AmiNET125 STB will delight customers of the TBSPL "My TIME" IPTV service."

Sujata Dev added: "This landmark deal will allow Time Broadband to target multiple telecom operators with a consumer base of over 60 million; the objective is to maximise IPTV penetration in consumer homes. To enhance consumer experience and delight, we chose Amino as our partner to provide the technology for STBs. This agreement gives us flexibility when manufacturing our own products, introduce futuristic technology at an economical cost while reducing the lead time to enter all major Indian markets in 2007; which is hailed by the Government as the Indian year of Broadband".

The recently signed deal covers a significant licensing contract for which Amino has already been paid and for an initial supply of AmiNET125 STBs for immediate Service roll-out. The agreement provides for the licensing of the AmiNET125 STB design and Amino's IntActTM IPTV software stack for the manufacture and sale of STBs in the Indian sub-continent and Middle-East markets. Within the framework of the same agreement, Amino will receive stipulated royalties on locally manufactured STBs and software in addition to the initial licence fee.