Pennsylvania-based rural ILEC Venus Telephone may be small, but for what it lacks in size it's making up in its broadband video service ambitions.
One of its current ambitions is to deliver a hybrid IPTV/Internet service to its rural customer base in February leveraging Skitter.TV's Acclaim hybrid IPTV/OTT platform. The hybrid service will offered as another option in addition to its traditional IPTV service.
Separately, Venus is also leveraging Skitter's Acclaim Video Encorder platform to transition its ATM-based video services to IPTV. Joining the likes of Alcatel-Lucent, Skitter is one of the latest vendors in recent years to create products targeting the Tier 2 and Tier 3 telco market segment.
Making the IPTV jump comes as the rural telco is building out a Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network to serve as a foundation for both its broadband and, of course, video services.
As of October 2010 Venus had installed an IP switch in its CO (central office) that will run in conjunction with its current digital switch until build over is complete. In addition, Venus has installed many of the required telephone poles and has hung and buried some fiber.
For more:
- ipTVnews has this article
- here's FierceIPTV's take
Related articles:
Skitter.TV targets independent telcos
Alcatel-Lucent rolls out compact-IPTV solution targeted at Tier 2, Tier 3 telcos