Belgian telco Alpha Networks left no stone unturned when it launched a managed-network IPTV service, an OTT video service and hosted service offerings for international operators.
To accomplish the multi-tasks, the carrier called on the services--and technology--of U.S. firm Harmonic (Nasdaq: HLIT), which brought in a "full complement" of video processing, servicer and storage solutions.
"The key to launching competitive multiscreen services was figuring out an efficient way to deliver live IPTV services to set-top boxes as well as live and video-on-demand services to tablets, smartphones and PCs using OTT technologies," Appha COO Guillaume Devezeaux said of the ambitious project.
Alpha's headend uses Harmonic video processing technology to manage SD and HD, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 AVC video. Its live encoding is accomplished with Harmonic's ACE high-density stream processors. VoD content is delivered with Harmonic's file-based transcoding solution.
Of course, Alpha has a pretty good reason to be aggressive in its deployments to try to crack a market where 80 percent Belgium's 4.5 million TV households subscribe to cable providers Telenet and VOO and Belgacom has already succeeded in cracking the IPTV space.
For more:
- see the release
- see this story
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