At Broadband World Forum, Motive, a leading provider of management software, and Thomson, partner to the media and entertainment industries, announced a strategic alliance to help broadband providers speed deployment and improve the management of advanced services in the digital home.

As more broadband providers depend on the ability to successfully and profitably deliver triple play services to the home, providers realize that a superior customer experience is an essential ingredient. This new relationship between Thomson and Motive allows providers to greatly enhance the usability of digital services like IPTV, VoIP, and home networking at a much lower cost than traditional methods including on-site technical visits and live troubleshooting sessions.

As part of the agreement, Motive and Thomson will:

• Build Motive management software into Thomson IP set-top boxes so that Motive and Thomson customers can remotely support IPTV subscribers through an automated and turn-key process.
• Collaborate with the DSL Forum to finalize an IP set-top box management protocol.
• Complete Thomson home gateway interoperability testing for the DSL Forum's TR-069 and TR-064 management protocols.
• Extend current interoperability testing to include management for VoIP devices and services.

"In the competitive digital television and triple play services market, telcos are looking for an edge over established providers," said Karsten Verhaegen, General Manager Broadband Video Solutions Business Unit, Thomson. "Collaborating with Motive and adding its management technology to our device portfolio allows telecom operators to activate services more efficiently, to get to market faster with battle-tested and stable service offerings, and to overall ensure that subscribers enjoy their experience with IP-based home services such as IPTV."

With Motive's management automation technology built into Thomson IP set-top boxes, subscribers will be able to troubleshoot service issues and customer service representatives will be able to remotely diagnose and repair IPTV problems. Motive and Thomson will also offer providers the option of a hosted management service, making it fast and easy for them to deploy automated management technology for IPTV services without the need for additional IT overhead.

"A key component of Motive's Digital Home Management strategy is to help service providers and technology vendors accelerate the delivery of next-generation services," said Kenny Van Zant, Motive's Executive Vice President of Marketing. "Working with Thomson, a market leader in IP set-top box and gateway technologies, gives Motive the opportunity to pair our intelligent automation technology for IPTV, VoIP and other services with Thomson's state-of-the-art service gateways as these are rolled out worldwide."

Motive and Thomson recently submitted a co-authored draft specification for a proposed IP set-top box management standard to the DSL Forum and are jointly editing the document with the Forum. The two companies are also collaborating to enable diagnostics and management for DSL residential gateways and have completed interoperability testing for the DSL Forum's TR-069 and TR-064 protocols for WAN- and LAN-side gateway management.