Brix Networks and HwaCom Systems Deliver Industry’s First Set-Top Box With Integrated IPTV Quality Agent

Companies Collaboration Gives Service Providers Crucial At-Home Visibility Into Subscribers’ Quality Of Experience

LONDON — IPTV World Forum 2007 — Brix Networks, the leading provider of converged service assurance solutions, and HwaCom Systems of Taipei Hsien, Taiwan, today announced the integration of Brix Networks’ IP television (IPTV) Quality Agent into HwaCom’s HC-100 set-top box (STB) that gives service providers the unique ability to collect valuable video performance information and metrics on an unprecedented scale, and provides crucial, at-home visibility into providers’ IPTV services.

HwaCom’s STB with the Brix IPTV Quality Agent lets service providers monitor IP video and network quality -- including highlighting the performance of the IPTV and multicast infrastructure, performing continual or on-demand diagnostics of the STB, and quantifying the user channel change experience -- for operational, troubleshooting, and customer care applications.

Brix Networks is exhibiting at this week’s IPTV World Forum 2007 show, being held March 5-7, at the Olympia in London, in booth 123.

“Visibility into service performance and quality beyond the service delivery infrastructure is essential to the success of IPTV,” said Gary Chen, president and CEO, HwaCom Systems. “By integrating Brix Networks’ converged service assurance technology into our STBs, we can now provide carriers the operational capabilities that are necessary to gain visibility into IPTV service performance and quality -- in the last mile, residential network, and even within the home -- to improve service quality, expedite troubleshooting, and ensure customer satisfaction.”

Brix is also now part of HwaCom’s IPTV ecosystem, which includes system elements from headend, middleware, video servers, network equipment, and set-top boxes with software applications. Additionally, the companies plan to develop other comprehensive IP video quality testing solutions for HwaCom’s STBs in the future.

According to Steve DesRochers, vice president, solutions, at Brix Networks, “Providers have undertaken very costly infrastructure additions and upgrades to support new IPTV services, and are now under enormous pressure to ensure successful IPTV rollouts. As a result, having visibility into endpoint devices like HwaCom’s STBs allows service providers to verify installations, continually improve operational efficiencies, reduce troubleshooting resolution times, validate performance and quality levels, and ensure the overall success of their IPTV services.”