Nokia Siemens Networks dips toe in hosting IPTV services
May 21, 2008 - Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) is considering offering hosted IPTV services to ISPs that do not wish to invest in their own system but still have interest in offering IPTV to their customers, according to a senior executive.
In an interview with Light Reading, Thomas Werner, Head of Applications at the company's Service Core and Applications Business Unit, commented that NSN has "a strong services footprint, with a huge and comprehensive services organisation - more than 20,000 staff. Hosting is one of the areas we would like to build further across the entire portfolio. We have experience in hosting networks and systems, mostly in the mobile sector, and we have hosting centres across all the major geographies... we're looking at offering hosting IPTV capabilities as well."
Nokia Siemens Networks would offer hosting of the service platform and back office systems, including the VOD servers, headend systems, encoders, digital rights management and middleware; the ISPs would use their own physical infrastructure to deliver the IPTV service to subscribers. NSN would provide the service using its IPTV ecosystem which includes solutions from Widevine, Verimatrix, C-Cor and Tandberg Television.
Mr. Werner adds that NSN has been undertaking "a lot of conceptual work, providing the basic functionalities to make it possible. We have performed trials in our labs and with prospective customers... We're waiting until the trials are concluded to see whether our expectations are met, then we'll be in a better position to come up with a timetable and roadmap."
The company is involved in two of the world's major IPTV deployments, by Belgacom in Belgium and KPN in the Netherlands, but the majority of its remaining 80 IPTV customers are small North American operators, and such a hosted solution could be the company's ticket to a larger slice of the global and burgeoning IPTV market.
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