Thomson today announced the launch of its pre-integrated service delivery platforms helping telecom service providers to introduce sophisticated voice and video features over broadband local loops. Combined with video head-end equipments from the company's Grass Valley activity and Thomson's home gateways and set-top box portfolio, this is the first truly pre-integrated solution on the market for quick and easy Triple Play deployment from thousands up to millions of users.

The heart of the solution is made of Thomson's SmartVision IPTV middleware and Cirpack VoIP SoftSwitches. Both are developed together by Thomson for streamlined development of converged services and IPTV delivery over Cirpack's IMS infrastructure. By managing both voice and video service delivery platforms together, Thomson will also help operators to optimise deployment cycles.

"For carriers facing increasing levels of competition, the emerging value proposition for VoIP is centred on bundling services, especially content-driven offerings such as IPTV", said Tom Valovic, Program Director of VoIP Infrastructure for analysts IDC. While IMS will eventually deliver many of these features, leading-edge operators need to address these challenges today. Thomson's approach to integrating softswitch and IPTV middleware functionality via a single service delivery platform is fully consistent with the requirements that many carriers currently have for out of the box triple play services that drive new revenue streams and enhance customer retention".

Advanced user services
Thomson's new triple play solutions include a user friendly interface, which transform the TV set into a truly integrated communications centre. The customer can thereby operate all telephone and video functions on their TV screen from the comfort of their couch with a simple remote control. Thomson's triple play features combine innovative SmartVision TV services such as live TV with picture in picture, video on demand, network personal video recording and time shifting (the ability to pause and resume live broadcasts), with advanced Cirpack telephony management for services such as caller ID on TV for incoming calls, browsing call history with click to dial, activating call forwarding, configuring black lists or selecting musical ring back tones on the TV.

Using open interfaces, Thomson's new triple play solutions integrates seamlessly with the operator's existing service platforms to turn the TV screen into a unified messaging centre for voice mail, video mail, SMS and e-mail. The interactive portal can be used to easily set up personal viewing and call preferences such as automatically pausing programmes for incoming calls. The same core network platforms can manage mobile devices for telephony such as dual mode WiFi-GSM phones and mobile video devices such as 3G phones or DVB-H receivers.

Jacques Dunogué, SEVP Thomson's Systems Division commented "In order to retain clients and improve ARPU, telecom operators are offering an ever-increasing range of sophisticated services turning their broadband local loops into a vital link to digital content. Operators need flexible and evolutive service platforms to deliver content in a secured and profitable manner, but also to easily offer end user with new innovative services. Thomson is uniquely positioned to help operators quickly launch high quality Triple Play services with a comprehensive and scaleable carrier-grade solution that can migrate to IMS networks."

Thomson are currently market leaders in Europe for IPTV middleware according to Multimedia Research Group's September 2006 IPTV Market Leader Report and world wide market leaders in Voice over Broadband residential telephony according to the latest report by analysts iLocus.