Research and Markets has announced the addition of System Integration and Professional Services in IPTV Networks to their offering.

This report tracks why and how SI services for IPTV have undergone significant growth since 2003 based on profiles of Alcatel, Motorola, Thales, UTStarcom, Lucent, Myrio, Kasenna, ECI and many others. The profiles include a wide variety of integration and professional services that supplement each SI company's own product and service offerings. In general, SI companies have developed a variety of end-to-end services that match the size of the service provider, as a means to shorten the time-to-market. Yet, one of the biggest challenges for SI providers to solve is to integrate competitors' products into their end-to-end solutions, while correctly assuming or allocating responsibility for each company's piece of the Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Research and Markets has announced the addition of IPTV Global Forecast: 2005-2008 Semiannual IPTV Global Forecast Update to their offering.

Growth projection will be from 1.9 million subscribers in 2004 to 25.3 million in 2008, for the first time the forecast includes System Integration & Professional Services as part of its global forecast. The report also forecasts IP TV subscriber revenue growth from $635 million in 2004 to $7.2 billion in 2008, also broken down on regional and service-provider levels.

Optibase, Ltd., a leading provider of advanced digital video solutions announced that a high-end surveillance application based on Optibase's video streaming solutions will be presented at Le Bourget, the world's premier air show. This is another example of the company's ability to utilize its advanced telco-grade IPTV platforms in applications other than Telco TV. Optibase's Professional Services group served as the prime contractor for the video portion of the project providing a comprehensive video-based command and control solution.

TechnoConcepts Inc., a pioneer and innovator of True Software Radio ^TM (TSR) wireless to digital technology, announced today that it has signed a technology transfer and licensing agreement with set-top box design firm Shanghai Jinshilin Technologies Development Company, Ltd. (Jinshilin). As part of the agreement, Jinshilin will license certain Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) technology for set-top boxes (STB's) and transfer purchase orders for approximately 300,000 IPTV STB's to TechnoConcepts' to be formed Chinese subsidiary. This subsidiary will begin to fulfill pending orders for approximately $30 million worth of Jinshilin IPTV set-top boxes by the end of the year. It is expected that all current purchase orders will be filled by the fall of 2006.

Country's 22nd Largest Telco Selects #1 Deployed IPTV Network

Coaxsys Incorporated, makers of the #1 deployed IPTV network, announced its relationship with Hargray Communications, the 22nd largest telco in the U.S. Hargray, with nearly 100,000 customers surrounding Hilton Head, South Carolina, will be using Coaxsys' TVnet to instantly deploy high-speed IP networks in customers' homes without having to rewire with Cat-5 cable.

Digital Identity, Italy's largest streaming media developer and services provider and California based EdgeStream, Inc announced that they have entered into a partnership to provide the ‘Next Generation Video on Demand and IPTV Streaming Technology platform" in Italy. With this agreement, Digital Identity will enable its network with the EdgeStream software and also License the EdgeStream technology to customers who will then be able to provide uninterrupted DVD quality video on demand streaming content to every broadband user in Italy and globally using the public Internet. With the availability of the EdgeStream platform, content providers and owners across Italy are now assured of delivering a quality experience to their consumers at the lowest cost per stream while building profitable businesses.

Tata Consultancy Services, Ltd. (TCS), a global IT services provider, and Orca Interactive, a global leader in the IPTV market, announced a partnership to offer worldwide IPTV system integration and service development over RiGHTv, Orca's IPTV middleware.

Orca Interactive announced the launch of Home Media, a digital entertainment application that brings digital media content from the PC to the TV. Home Media enables subscribers to comfortably view photos and listen to music via the TV, and empowers IPTV operators to gain a bigger share of the large digital entertainment market.

CNet reports that Siemens is looking to round out its IPTV offering as it gears up to compete with Microsoft in the IPTV market. One of the primary signs indicating Siemens interest is the acquisition of Myrio in April. Myrio offers service provider and content-management software and software for the set-top boxes. Yet even with the purchase of Myrio, Siemens is still lacking some software pieces to complete the offering.

While reading a "press release" from a company claiming to offer live Internet TV from around the world, I found several other sites that appear to offer the same functionality. In reality, these sites tend to not actually offer live Internet TV but redirect you to sites that do. After a little more research, it was clear to us that there are actually quite a few sites looking to provide the most comprehensive list of TV stations on the Internet. We even found software that provides a user friendly list of the free Internet TV stations in a nice little user interface but naturally the software wasn't free.

Verizon will soon bring to nine communities in the Harrisburg area one of the most significant advancements in telecommunications technology in the past 100 years. The communities are: Hummelstown Borough and Derry, West Hanover, East Hanover, South Hanover, Swatara, Lower Swatara, Lower Paxton and Susquehanna townships.

The company announced plans to build a fiber-optic network that will deliver faster data speeds and crystal-clear voice to residence and business customers here – and also has the capability to offer a full suite of future video services. The company will seek a franchise agreement from the local authority before offering cable service in a particular community.

IMAKE and Alticast signed a partnership agreement to provide and market open standards-based, end-to-end solutions for providers of Video On Demand (VOD) and Interactive Television (iTV) services. The partnership brings together IMAKE, a major provider of solutions and services that enable the seamless delivery and management of On Demand broadband services, and Alticast, a leading provider of open-standards iTV solutions that allow service providers to create, manage, deliver and monitor iTV applications to OCAP (OpenCable Application Platform) and MHP (multimedia home platform) standards.

Paradyne, a leading provider of triple play broadband loop carriers (BLCs) and Ethernet access equipment, announced that Alands Datakommunikation (Alcom), the primary DSL provider for the Aland Islands has recently launched Finland's first commercial IPTV over DSL service.

Broadcom Corporation, a global leader in wired and wireless broadband communications semiconductors, reinforced its leadership position in the set-top box semiconductor market by participating in the world's first demonstration of MPEG-4 compressed, high definition (HD) live TV broadcasting over an operational ADSL2+ network. Alcatel, Broadcom, France Telecom and TANDBERG collaborated on the HDTV over ADSL2+ technology demonstration, which took place at the French Open Tennis Tournament at Roland Garros Stadium in France, June 2, 2005. This same demonstration was also presented at Salon Europeen de la Recherche et de l'Innovation/European Research and Innovation Exhibition June 3, 2005.

TVN Entertainment, the leading provider of on demand television programming, management and delivery solutions, and Widevine Technologies, the largest provider of content security solutions to the video over IP market and inventor of the Cypher Virtual SmartCard ^TM, announced that the Widevine Cypher System has been implemented and is in use by TVN for pre-encryption and secure transport of VOD assets.