Enea & Kontron Launch IPTV Experience

Global Effort Unites Leading Telecom Software, Hardware and Semiconductor Organizations to Remove Barriers to IPTV Quality

Eching, Germany / Chicago, USA, June 19, 2007 – Enea (Nordic Exchange/Small Cap/ENEA), a world leading provider of network software and services, and Kontron, a leading developer of standard-based, custom embedded and mobile rugged solutions, together today announced the IPTV Experience, a global, broad-based industry initiative created to address the major design, technology and business challenges impeding widespread adoption of IPTV. Kicking off this initiative, Enea and Kontron will host during NXTcomm a number of activities including a panel discussion moderated by Steven Hawley from the Media Research Group. Participating companies in this panel include Intel Corp and RADVISION.

“Our recent research estimates that there will be 63.6 million IPTV subscribers by 2011, and they will demand the highest Quality of Experience in order to remain loyal,” said Steve Hawley, senior IPTV analyst at Multimedia Research Group (MRG). “Industry initiatives like IPTV Experience provide a unified and systemic view of the complex IPTV ecosystem, helping to ensure the highest-quality implementations to support subscriber demands.”

The IPTV Experience initiative provides guidance, information and best-practices for overcoming the major challenges in IPTV delivery:
• High Network Processing Capability – Network processing performance is crucial in relieving I/O bottlenecks and managing concurrent data streams efficiently for IPTV. Multi-core processing technology allows network equipment designers to add required performance headroom.
Proven Standardized Platforms – Commercial off-the-shelf solutions allow developers to leverage advanced technology, while remaining focused on core competencies. Open-standards-based platforms enable IPTV interoperability allowing service providers to customize and create value-added services.
• Manageability – The ability to manage the network, perform upgrades, service existing equipment and avoid IPTV downtime is more important than ever. With increasing subscriber demands, service providers demand network visibility and management at the blade, module and system levels.
• Scalability – To prepare and build a system for change, it is important for service providers to implement technology that is flexible, scalable and easy to upgrade. The need to support emerging technology and provide increased performance, places greater emphasis on hardware adaptability in network deployments.
• High Reliability and Availability – In an “always on” environment, IPTV systems must be extremely available and reliable. Network element and application failure negatively impact the QoE. With on-demand content, it is essential that a high availability framework be implemented that supports controlled and managed failover.
• Interactivity – With the emerging ability to support High Definition resolutions on decoders, and System-on-Chip integrated decoders, introduction of full interactive video services based on IPTV and IP set-top-box models that go beyond Video on Demand and Electronic Program Guide are becoming a reality. Live interaction between people becomes a springboard for an entirely new paradigm of communication.
• Fast Time to Market – Widespread adoption of IPTV requires network equipment manufacturers to adopt a standards driven, commercial COTS approach to accelerate development cycles and continue to meet demands.

Because consumers have come to expect a high level of quality through traditional television viewing, the single most important barrier to widespread adoption of IPTV is Quality of Service and maximum QoE. In order to deliver the highest quality IPTV experience to the consumer mainstream faster, technology vendors, equipment manufacturers and service providers must work together to create optimized IPTV solutions that provide superior QoE. The IPTV Experience initiative unites leading technologies and industry expertise to drive IPTV best practices and standards. For more information about the IPTV Experience initiative, please visit www.iptvexperience.com.