180Squared Launches “Mediaroom in a Box” IPTV Solution for Smaller Carriers

Pleasanton, Calif.-based 180Squared–a company that bills itself as “a team of Microsoft Mediaroom alumni with extensive Mediaroom product and services expertise” (note: Mediaroom is Microsoft’s IPTV platform)–announced Wednesday the launch of a Mediaroom solution, dubbed “Mediaroom in a Box,” that is geared towards smaller carriers. The company says that, while working with Microsoft to support existing Mediaroom customers, it has also been working towards developing an end-to-end solution that will “help smaller carriers in the US to sharpen their business case around IPTV” and “support Mediaroom as the middleware of choice.” “Some new things have been happening in Microsoft recently,” 180Squared founder and VP, Amir Littman, said in a prepared statement. “Recently, Microsoft has made some major strides in scalability in their software. In addition, with their use of virtualization, they’ve effectively now brought a solution that used to require a large server footprint to support their middleware down to something most smaller carriers can fit into their CAPEX budget. In addition, there has been a renewed interest in Microsoft to support these smaller carriers as they (Microsoft) want to see continued growth in their Xbox 360 and ‘Connected Home’ markets. This has led them to a path that now supports a licensing model more geared towards supporting smaller carriers. 180Squared’s Mediaroom in a Box solution takes advantage of these efforts in Microsoft to develop a single, end-to-end solution that works in partnership with smaller carriers. The goal is to bring a single, end-to-end solution with all the components carriers are asking for, at one low price with a quick time to market.”

Key features of Mediaroom in a Box, according to 180Squared, include: full architecture and deployment services for Mediaroom; B/OSS integration service; a 180Squared Framework B/OSS software package that includes a global operations manager, B/OSS interfaces and workflow engine and basic set-top box management; caller-ID; and remote PVR.

Six More Companies Join Microsoft Mediaroom Partner Ecosystem

At the recent NXTcomm tradeshow in Las Vegas, Microsoft
announced six new additions to the partner ecosystem of its Mediaroom
IPTV platform:

• HP, Tech Mahindra and 180Squared have signed on as systems
  integration partners, joining existing Mediaroom systems integration
  partner, Alcatel-Lucent. According to Microsoft, the three companies
  have completed a Mediaroom training and market-readiness program
  that qualifies them to offer deployment services to new and existing
  customers of the platform. Microsoft claims that the addition of the
  three systems integrators to the Mediaroom ecosystem is in response to
  growing interest in IPTV services on the part of broadband operators
  around the world (note: Microsoft says that Mediaroom has been
  selected by 20 of the world’s leading operators across four continents,
  and that 14 of those have deployed it commercially; it claims that the
  platform is now powering interactive TV services on over 2 million TV
  sets around the world, and that, while it took Mediaroom 18 months to
  reach its first million TV’s, it only took it five months to reach its
  second million). The three companies are also working with Microsoft
  to build so-called “center of excellence” laboratories around the world,
  which are intended to assist with everything from trials to commercial
  deployments. “Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft commenced a strategic
  reseller and systems integration relationship to accelerate the
  worldwide availability of IPTV, and this successful relationship
  remains in place,” Christine Heckart, general manager of marketing for
  Microsoft Mediaroom, said in a prepared statement. “We are pleased to
  further enhance the Mediaroom technology ecosystem with the addition
  of deployment service companies HP, Tech Mahindra and 180Squared
  to support service providers scaling their differentiated connected TV
  services. Alcatel-Lucent has partnered with Microsoft on our largest
  Mediaroom IPTV deployments and remains our only end-to-end IPTV
  system integrator.”

• Agilent Technologies and IneoQuest Technologies have signed on as
  IPTV quality of service (QoS) partners. According to Microsoft, the
  companies’ service assurance solutions will enable constant monitoring
  and analysis of Mediaroom-powered services, by offering such
  performance indicators as packet loss monitoring, analysis of
  audiovisual bitrates, ongoing assessment of the effectiveness of
  Mediaroom’s instant-channel-change capability, and continual
  observation of round-trip latency between Mediaroom servers and
  clients. “As world-class leaders in QoS solutions, Agilent and
  IneoQuest bring exceptional service assurance solutions to the
  Microsoft Mediaroom ecosystem,” Joe Seidel, director of global partner
  ecosystems for Mediaroom, said in a prepared statement. “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, which it bills as a complete test solution that is
  designed to detect and resolve signaling, transport, platform and
  general quality-of-experience problems before end-users are affected.
  IneoQuest’s Mediaroom service-assurance solution, meanwhile, is its
  IQPinPoint, which it says integrates its iVMS video management
  system with its multi-interface Cricket family, its 1 GigE and 10 GigE
  Singulus family, and its 1 GigE and 10 GigE Geminus family of
  intelligent hardware probes. According to the company, the IQPinPoint
  solution allows for real-time monitoring, analysis, troubleshooting and
  auditing of thousands of simultaneous video flaws for such data as IP
  packet loss, video bit rates, channel-change parameters and round-trip
  latency.

• Harris has signed on as an encoding solution provider. According to
  Microsoft, Harris’s NetVX range of H.264/MPEG-4 standard-definition
  video networking encoders has successfully completed conformance
  testing for use with Mediaroom; the testing was conducted through the
  Microsoft Mediaroom Interoperability and Qualification Lab
  program. “The Harris NetVX SD video encoding solution gives our
  service provider customers another way to help reduce costs and
  improve the overall performance of their Microsoft Mediaroom-based
  TV services,” Microsoft’s Joe Seidel said in a prepared statement. “We
  are looking forward to our ongoing collaboration with Harris to help
  service providers offer their customers the very best in connected TV
  services.”