Company has put teething troubles (outages) behind it and is using a new middleware from Zignal that supports network PVR and home automation. In-home networking is wireless. By Philip Hunter

New middleware

Magnet is a wholly-owned subsidiary of US-based private equity company Columbia Ventures Corporation, and is a sister company of systems integrator Industria. This relationship led to the new middleware, for Industria owns Zignal, whose IPTV service delivery platform was designed to Magnet’s specifications and is to be marketed to other IPTV service providers elsewhere in the world. However, as the Zignal platform was not ready in time for Magnet’s first deployment of an IPTV service early in 2005, the company initially used the Orca Interactive middleware platform.

While there appears to be some risk in moving to an untried platform, Magnet contends that it has a significant edge through having the middleware, which is so vital for IPTV, fashioned to it own requirements. According to Magnet’s IPTV systems engineer Eoin Halpin, a primary design goal of the Zignal platform was to make the middleware as future-tolerant as possible, embodying support for network PVR, home automation and for multiple services from a single server bank. Its ability to provide different service sets for different subscriber groups, which it refers to as ‘zoning’, is particularly relevant for Magnet’s ambitions in the hospitality sector, where it will allow individual hotels or leisure groups to have custom-tailored service packages. This also ties in well with Magnet’s strategy of collaborating with building developers to construct apartments and estates that are IPTV-ready, and exploit the opportunities for additional revenue. For the Spencer Park development in Dublin’s docklands area, Magnet again teamed with Industria to install the latter’s Digital Living Broadband Solution, extending the IP broadband network around the home. This will enable Magnet to offer a bouquet of services including VOD, nPVR, gaming, security via video cameras, TV, telephony, broadband Internet, and home automation for heating and lighting control. Magnet currently uses Bitband VOD servers and plans to upgrade to the company’s nPVR/Pause Live TV package, allowing a full network based service combining VOD with Replay TV.

Exclusive deals?

Magnet has been criticized for attempting to strike exclusive deals with developers and shut out competitors, but Mr. Halpin said that other providers are not denied access. For example, in Dublin’s Adamstown development, where 25,000 new homes will be built over the next 20 years, buildings will also be outfitted for Magnet’s two major competitors: NTL for cable TV, and SmartCom, an alternative broadband service over the incumbent Telecom Eireann’s DSL network. However, Magnet holds exclusive rights over the fibre network running to these houses, so it is possible that in the long run it will be able to squeeze its competitors, or else charge them for fibre access.

Magnet also offers a wireless option for distributing IPTV in the home, using wireless routers from Ruckus Wireless, whose smart antenna technology exploits multiple radio signal paths to boost bit rate and, crucially for TV, greatly reduce the incidence of breaks in the signal and bit errors.

Magnet also adopted the content protection system from Widevine Technologies, which has already been widely deployed, for IPTV. This, according to Mr. Halpin, helped Magnet secure a deal with Time Warner for access to blockbuster movies, which will be offered on a pay-per-view basis later this year. “The first thing they asked was ‘who are you using as your DRM’ and when we said ‘Widevine,’ they were delighted,” said Halpin.

Like other IPTV operators, coverage is an issue, especially as Magnet insists on a minimum of 8Mbps to deliver a triple-play service. This is not an issue for new building developments as the service will usually be delivered to the sites via fibre, then over the relatively short distances within the building using Ethernet over Category 6 cable (in principle, at rates of 1Gbps or more).

Copper network

But, to begin with, the predominant access method for residential services is Telecom Eireann’s copper network, with speeds that vary widely from 1.5 to 24Mbps depending on loop lengths. Magnet’s strategy here is to hire fibre capacity from Ireland’s Electricity Supply Board, whose subsidiary ESB Telecoms has a 1,300km fibre ring following power cable routes. Magnet is piggy-backing over this ring to pop out from its headquarters in Dublin to within two miles of a new development in Galway. It is then feasible to dig fibre to cover the remaining short distance, although in some other cases Magnet may still feed back into a Telecom Eireann exchange for the last mile.

Magnet will also be using microwave links to provide business IPTV and videoconferencing services to corporate clients via symmetric (S)DSL connections.