Swisscom/Bluewin is testing Microsoft’s newly announced IPTV solution as a platform for Pay-TV services over an ADSL network. Bluewin, which is Swisscom’s broadband services subsidiary, plans to be one of the first companies in Europe and among the first in the world to conduct a trial of pay-TV services over an IP broadband network using Microsoft’s IPTV.
http://www.microsoft.com/tv/http://www.swisscom.com
- In October 2003, Microsoft announced a new technology initiative to develop IPTV solutions based on Windows Media 9 Series encoding technology, which has approximately three times the efficiency of MPEG-2 and twice that of MPEG-4. The Microsoft TV solution also will be designed to support the range of Windows Embedded operating systems for IPTV set-top boxes, including Windows CE .NET. It will also include digital rights management (DRM) technology to help secure content while adding new standards-based service protection to provide higher levels of security for video assets and TV services. Microsoft said its architecture will scale to millions of subscribers through intelligent management of video assets and their delivery. Key partners for Microsoft TV include Harmonic and TANDBERG for real-time video encoding for broadcast and IPTV telecommunications companies; Juniper Networks for its IP-based infrastructure platforms; Intel for computing, communications and consumer electronics devices for the home; Pace Micro Technology for digital TV set-tops; and Thomson for its video technologies, products and services.
- Other announced carriers testing Microsoft’s IPTV include Bell Canada and India’s Reliance Infocomm.