Microsoft Adds Agilent and IneoQuest Quality of Service Assurance Solutions to Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV Ecosystem

Growing ecosystem reinforces quality of service for Microsoft Mediaroom-powered offerings.

LAS VEGAS . — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Agilent Technologies Inc. and IneoQuest Technologies Inc. have joined the Microsoft Mediaroom ecosystem as Internet Protocol television (IPTV) quality of service (QoS) solution providers. The Agilent and IneoQuest solutions help service providers ensure the highest QoS for their deployments of the award-winning Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV and multimedia software platform without compromising security or network performance.

With the help of Agilent and IneoQuest, consumer interest and adoption of Microsoft Mediaroom services will continue to accelerate. The platform, which reached 1 million subscriber homes in the first quarter of 2008, is now powering connected TV services on more than 2 million TV sets worldwide. Microsoft Mediaroom took 18 months to reach its first million TVs, and only five months to reach its second million, a rate of more than three times faster.

A key component of the Microsoft Mediaroom ecosystem, service assurance solutions enable up-to-the-minute monitoring and analyzing of Microsoft Mediaroom-powered services. With the Agilent and IneoQuest solutions, service providers have a more effective way to quickly detect and resolve QoS issues, which can ultimately help reduce operating costs. Specific measurement and performance indicators Agilent and IneoQuest’s solutions will provide include the following:
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Effective packet loss, taking into account Microsoft Mediaroom’s unique error-correction methods that enable high resilience to network performance degradation
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Analysis of audiovisual bit rates
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Ongoing assessment of instant channel-changing effectiveness
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Continual observation of round-trip latency between Microsoft Mediaroom servers and clients

“As world-class leaders in QoS solutions, Agilent and IneoQuest bring exceptional service assurance solutions to the Microsoft Mediaroom ecosystem,” said Joe Seidel, director of global partner ecosystems for Microsoft Mediaroom. “Through these collaborations, Mediaroom service providers will be able to more easily prevent, identify and troubleshoot issues and help ensure the seamless delivery of next-generation TV offerings.”

Agilent’s service assurance solution for Microsoft Mediaroom is its J6900A Triple Play Analyzer. This solution is a complete test solution for network equipment manufacturers and communication service providers that develop, install, maintain, troubleshoot and monitor IP-based voice, video and data systems. It is an ideal tool for detecting and resolving signaling, transport, platform and general quality of experience problems before customers can be affected. It also provides the essential measurements and key performance indicators that enable engineers and technicians to quickly and proactively identify customer issues before they become problems, resulting in faster and higher-quality IPTV network deployments.

IneoQuest’s IQPinPoint™ is a video quality and service assurance solution, integrating the award-winning IneoQuest iVMS™ video management system with the multi-interface Cricket™ family, the 1 GigE and 10 GigE Singulus™ family, and 1 GigE and 10 GigE Geminus™ family of intelligent hardware probes. iVMS, with strategically placed hardware probes throughout the network, provides true end-to-end quality monitoring from video source to subscriber. Its patented multidimensional quality assurance technology ensures the highest possible quality of video experience for Microsoft Mediaroom customers. The intelligent IQPinPoint solution provides revenue assurance through essential real-time monitoring, analysis, troubleshooting and auditing of thousands of simultaneous video flows for critical network parameters including IP packet loss, video bit rates, channel change parameters and round-trip server latency.