Auroras Entertainment, LLC and Wegener Corporation announced that they have entered into an agreement under which Auroras has licensed WEGENER's COMPEL Network Control system for use in IPTV, bringing world-class network control, including blackout management for sporting content, to IPTV.

Auroras, a leader in IPTV content, infrastructure and services, will utilize WEGENER's COMPEL framework in order to provide superior network control throughout its nationwide IPTV network. Because of the unique infrastructure that IPTV is delivered upon, a single IPTV headend can service extremely large geographic regions, making the traditional approach for regional programming and blackout management of sporting events currently used at the cable-television headend impractical. The first Set Top Box (STB) to support the new Auroras/WEGENER IPTV COMPEL product will be WEGENER's own SMD- 515 MPEG-4 IPTV STB.

"We needed a system that was not only flexible and customizable, but one that was proven as well. WEGENER's COMPEL Network Control System fits the bill perfectly," said Mike Kazmier, President and Chief Technology Officer at Auroras. "In particular, managing the complex rules and regulations surrounding blackout management of live sporting events is a daunting task by itself. IPTV only magnifies the problem because of its far reaching ability. The solution to be provided by Auroras and WEGENER not only solves the problem, it does so transparently, independent of middleware or other factors in the IPTV network. WEGENER's experience and leadership in network control will be essential to providing a seamless, integrated solution to our customers."

"Auroras is a leading provider of IPTV, and this is a new frontier in television delivery," said Ned Mountain, President of WEGENER. "Working with Auroras allows us to translate our 15 years of control system experience into solutions for this emerging market. We are excited that Auroras sees value in working with WEGENER on many fronts, including COMPEL."