ADB ships 50 millionth device

Monday, February 24th, 2014
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Infographic 50 million devicesADB ships 50 millionth device as software code reaches the edge of the solar system

  • ADB software code developed to date for broadband and pay-TV equates to two Large Hadron Colliders
  • ADB technology enables operators to generate $18 billion revenues each year
  • Operators rely on ADB technology to manage 115 exabytes of data traffic each year

GENEVA, Switzerland — Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB) [SIX: ADBN] today announced that it has shipped its 50 millionth device. With each broadband gateway featuring 30 million lines of code and the new Wideband set-top box 100 million lines, ADB’s software engineers’ code would now stretch to the edge of our solar system.

This milestone is the culmination of thousands of man-years of research and development at ADB’s facilities in Poland, Italy, Ukraine and Taiwan since the company’s launch in 1995. Hundreds of developers at these locations write millions of lines of software each year including user interfaces, smart home and user applications and the software to run broadband gateways and set-top boxes.

Every year, 55 million TV viewers consume 80 billion hours of TV using ADB technology and 62 million individuals spend 45 billion hours online using ADB’s broadband technology. In total, operators across the world rely on ADB technology to manage 115 exabytes of data traffic each year. One exabyte is 1018 bytes and holds a hundred thousand times all the printed material in the Library of Congress.

The 50 millionth device is an ADB Wideband gateway being delivered to Canal Digital Kabel-tv in Norway. It features the ADB Carbo™ user interface and will run ADB Multi-Room software, giving users an identical live TV, DVR and video on demand (VOD) experience across set-top boxes and other secure devices throughout the home, regardless of the physical location of the recording or the tuner being accessed.

The shipment highlights the company’s evolution into a business where operators now rely on ADB for vital, game-changing broadcast and broadband software – from the revolutionary Graphyne multi-screen user experience framework through to the award-winning Epicentro software platform for the connected home.

“We have reached an important milestone in the transition of the company from a traditional hardware focus to one where software and services are key,” said Peter Balchin, CEO at ADB. “This is the cornerstone of our connected homes, connected lives vision where multimedia content and services come from multiple sources and need to seamlessly move between multiple screens and devices, wherever the user happens to be.”

“Playing to the cliché that software developers work long hours on a diet of pizza and coffee, we worked out that our software development team has consumed over two million pizzas, 1.7 tonnes of coffee, 100,000 kg of pasta and over 2.6 million pierogi dumplings over the years,” said Paul Bristow, vice president of marketing communications at ADB. “But the result is staggering – our modern wideband gateway has as many lines of code as two large hadron colliders, while a typical broadband gateway has more lines of code than an F-36 stealth fighter.”