Brazil's Oi may name its IPTV suppliers soon

Brazil's Telemar Norte Leste (TNL), otherwise known as Oi, is going to name its IPTV equipment supplier soon.

According to a TeleGeography article citing local Brazil media reports, possible IPTV supplier candidates are Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC), Huawei, and ZTE. Oi will name the winners in the coming weeks.

What Oi wants from its IPTV vendor is an end-to-end solution, versus the pay-as-you-grow model that Brazil used for its IPTV service trials, or Oi's previous move to transfer the risk to suppliers of the successful service deployment.

With plans to put the solution into its network by the end of the year, Oi said it would launch the service next year, but no formal date has been set.

The move comes at a time when Brazilian government has revised regulations that make it easier for telcos to offer video services to compete with cable operators already offering triple play service bundles.

For more:
- TeleGeography has this article

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