Harmonic Inc. today announced that Telekom Austria is using Harmonic's industry-leading digital video solutions, including the high performance DiviCom encoders, for its aonDigital TV Service. Launched in Vienna and being rolled out nationally, the service offers viewers access to a full complement of broadcast television, radio and premium services such as video-on-demand. Telekom Austria joins the large group of top tier telco operators around the world who have selected Harmonic systems for their IP-based services; in Europe, Harmonic encoders power more IPTV channels than any other brand. The DiviCom encoders, in addition to Harmonic's ProView integrated receivers/decoders and widely implemented NMX Digital Service Manager, were deployed as part of a comprehensive IPTV solution delivered by Alcatel.

With the increasing competition for the customer and consumer preferences shifting toward a more highly personalized anytime, anywhere just for me TV experience, telco operators are adding innovative new video services to their existing portfolio of voice and data offerings. Harmonic's IP-based headend solutions give operators such as Telekom Austria unmatched versatility, video quality and bandwidth efficiency, in addition to the scalability to support more advanced services in the future.

"To solidify and strengthen our customer relationships, revenue potential and market position, Telekom Austria is complementing its voice, data and mobile offerings with an exciting range of broadcast and on-demand TV services," said Helmut Leopold, Managing Director of Platform and Technology Management at Telekom Austria. "This new service complements the wide selection of high-quality and leading-edge solutions that we offer both our fixed line and mobile customers. Harmonic was the natural choice for Telekom Austria with its complete range of native IP headend products, as well as the highly flexible NMX system for monitoring and control of our video infrastructure. Our new Harmonic DiviCom encoders maximize the efficiency of video delivery across our ADSL infrastructure while providing a high quality, high value service that will enable us to compete more effectively over the long term."

"On a global basis, the business of television is rapidly evolving with an expanding array of services and companies to deliver them. Telekom Austria's new service represents another major step forward in realizing the promise of IP-based TV," said Patrick Harshman, President and CEO of Harmonic Inc. "Telekom Austria understands that viewers fundamentally are not concerned with how TV is delivered; they simply want to receive a compelling and differentiated service. Similarly, our customers want more than just an encoder. As with Telekom Austria, Harmonic makes it possible for operators to establish and consistently set the benchmark for a world-class service."

In addition to delivering advanced video products, Harmonic brings years of specialized solution development and integration expertise garnered by working with leading telco, cable, satellite and terrestrial service providers around the world. As part of the end-to-end solution delivered by Alcatel, Harmonic's high performance digital video systems offer unparalleled value to Telekom Austria and other IPTV operators deploying new video services through experience that no other headend provider can match. This includes the implementation of the first large-scale MPEG-2 IPTV service, the first service based solely on MPEG-4 AVC and the first live service to transition from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4.

Every day, DiviCom encoders -- a family which includes the world's most deployed AVC-enabled encoder and the industry's first multi-service encoder -- deliver tens of thousands of free and pay TV channels to millions of viewers in MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. The ProView PVS 6000 is a modular and customizable platform designed for professional applications such as multi-format, multi-source content acquisition and video monitoring. The standards-based, extensible NMX Digital Service Manager monitors and controls Telekom Austria's complete digital headend environment. In addition to enabling advanced redundancy architectures, and streamlining problem detection, analysis and resolution, NMX facilitates system installation and configuration, as well as automates service and resource scheduling.