Verizon (NYSE: VZ) may have put the brakes on further FiOS expansion but, at least according to an announcement coming from CES 2013 in Las Vegas, it hasn't put the kibosh on features expansion. And Motorola, a Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) unit for now, may have been acquired by Arris (Nasdaq: ARRS) just before the holidays, but, again according to its CES presence, hasn't left the vendor space.
Thus, the two companies combined to demonstrate their continuing viability and working relationship with an announcement introducing a new media server, Motorola Medios+ VMS1100, and IP-based set-top box, Motorola Medios+ IPCS1100, for FiOS subscribers.
The new server is "the centerpiece" of Motorola's new platform that can support up to five clients on separate TVs, Rob McLaughlin, senior vice president and general manager of global sales, marketing and ops for the Motorola Home business unit, wrote in a blog that appeared on the Verizon website.
The bottom line, McLaughlin wrote, is that "everyone in the house can watch what they want, at the same time." The server also offers a terabyte of storage that equates to 100 hours of HD content or "weeks of SD programming."
The set-top "taps into all that goodness via coax, from a sleek box the size of a paperback novel," he said.
Verizon had been talking about the new media server for a while--as had subscribers who felt constrained by the limits older technology was placing on their TV Everywhere experience--and had been expected to introduce something during 2012. That the product announcement fell into 2013 is probably a result of the spotlight available at CES and the FCC's ongoing effort to develop home networking standards, which the agency expected to issue in 2013 but has since pushed back to 2014. This bit of leeway was enough, apparently, for Verizon and Motorola to take the wraps off the media server and its adjacent set-top.
For more:
- Verizon carried this Motorola blog
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