Amino Brings IPTV To Portugal

By DAVID SIMS

TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist

Amino, an IPTV software and consumer premises equipment vendor, has announced it has been selected by Novis, a major Portuguese telco, for a residential service to be branded as "Clix Smartv."

A commercial test launch with AmiNET110 set-top boxes is scheduled for December 2005 in Lisbon and Porto, with full commercial deployment planned for 2006 in all major cities.

The service will include an electronic program guide, Video on Demand, and a personalized choice of channels. Susanna Barbato, Managing Director of IPTV services for Novis said it would be the first time anyone had offered IPTV services in Portugal, and the company "expects to create a large subscriber base in Portugal over the coming years."

The service will offer 50 channels for the test launch, increasing to 100 when the commercial deployment commences. The AmiNET110 was chosen by Novis for residential deployments due to its "flexibility," said Bob Giddy, CEO Amino.

The AmiNET110 is compatible with the ReadyLinks Smartfoot and Coaxsys home networking adapters, allowing operators to avoid costly wiring of CAT5 cable throughout the home.

IPTV's on most international agendas these days. On Bill Gates' current swing through India he found time to sit down with Reliance Infocomm chief Anil Ambani to jaw about their two companies cooperating on next-generation IP-based television services in India.

"We will now help them in rolling out broadband services... he has a strategy in place and we will play a key role in helping them," Gates said, according to Telecom Asia. "We are putting renewed energy into the [IPTV] tie-up."

Telecom Asia also reported that Reliance Infocomm and Microsoft "had agreed three years ago to work together to jointly create, test and deliver IPTV services based on an upcoming IPTV product being developed by Microsoft TV."

One issue in international IPTV is simply which standard will end up, well, standard. China's leaning towards picking MPEG-4 as its IPTV coding standard, "a decision set to be made at end-2005," according to Analysys International: "China will issue its first IPTV standard draft at end-2005, with the standard covering seven aspects: business requirements, general structure, DVB, business platform interfaces, operation platform interfaces, support of the access equipments and study on video coding."

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.

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