TANDBERG Television’s OpenStream Powers Hybrid IPTV/Cable VOD Services for Multimedia Polska

Provides open software platform, offering choice and flexibility

Southampton, UK. - TANDBERG Television, part of the Ericsson Group, today announced that its OpenStream® Digital Services platform has been fully deployed by Multimedia Polska to power its entire on-demand (VOD) services. Multimedia Polska has over 600,000 customers and is one of the leading Polish providers of triple-play, combining hybrid cable/IPTV television, broadband internet and fixed-line telephony in a single package. The VOD service is a critical part of the Polish operator’s deployment of a major, advanced multimedia offering. Programming includes a broad line up of movies, sports and entertainment and is available either via free, subscription, transaction or ’time-shift/catch-up’ services. Multimedia Polska also launched a HDTV offering last year using TANDBERG Television encoding and future plans will see the operator introduce more advanced, revenue generating services such as mobile TV.

“Our on-demand platform is a major part of our vision for an advanced media service for Poland. We were the first Polish operator to launch digital television services for our telephony subscribers and we are now in a position to be innovators in the Polish VOD market,” says Bartlomiej Kasinski, Strategy and Development Director, Multimedia Polska. “We chose TANDBERG Television’s OpenStream platform because it provides the interoperability with third party products that we require and seamless support for our middleware system. Flexibility is a key factor and OpenStream’s open architecture will enable us to benefit from a multi-vendor environment and provide a firm foundation for our interactive, consumer-focused service.”

As part of the contract TANDBERG Television has provided its Xport® on-demand content production software system, as well as its OpenStream back office. The deal builds on TANDBERG Television’s leadership position in the on-demand market. With five OpenStream systems already deployed in Europe, including UPC Netherlands, TANDBERG Television has rapidly become the European market leader in on-demand back office solutions. In addition, OpenStream is the leading open digital services platform in North America and has multiple deployments in Asia, including Oriental Cable Network (OCN) in Shanghai.

“We are delighted that our OpenStream platform is enabling another milestone roll-out of VOD services. Multimedia Polska’s vision for an extensive media system for Poland reflects its own fast growth and vibrancy and we are proud to be part of that development,” says Eric Baron, President of TANDBERG Television EMEA. “Given the highly competitive nature of the television and multimedia market and the increasing constraints on capital, it was vital that we could provide Multimedia Polska with a cost-effective method of rolling out revenue generating on-demand services. OpenStream allows flexibility, scalability and the lowest possible total cost of ownership without sacrificing performance, security or freedom of choice.”

The OpenStream Digital Services Platform
The industry’s leading open standards based solution, OpenStream offers operators the flexibility of using servers, applications, billing systems, and other system components of their choice. The platform currently delivers on-demand streams to more than 60 US markets reaching over 15 million digital subscribers. Top operators who have commercially deployed the OpenStream platform include Comcast, Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable and UPC. OpenStream was also selected as the platform of choice for the small to mid-size market by National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), which represents over 1,000 independent cable operators serving more than 14 million subscribers nationwide.