ADB and Mariner Provide Proactive Service Monitoring Solution

GENEVA and SAINT JOHN, NB — Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB) [SIX:ADBN], a leading supplier of technology to the global digital television industry, and Mariner, a leading provider of innovative IP video technologies, today unveiled a solution to enable proactive pay-TV service monitoring which increases the quality of subscribers’ experience and reduces operator costs.

The joint solution integrates new software capabilities in ADB’s latest IPTV set-top boxes with Mariner’s award-winning flagship service assurance suite, xVu™. The solution provides quantifiable metrics on the quality of the video, audio and performance of each set-top box in each home. The operator has visibility into problems of long channel change times, errors within the video such as frame drop, and can proactively resolve them, sometimes even before the subscriber notices them, let alone calls for support.

“As operators continue to invest a significant amount of resources to acquire new subscribers, the importance on retaining these has never been higher. A key aspect to subscriber retention is video service quality,” said Francois Pogodalla, CEO of ADB. “Operators who deploy the joint Mariner-ADB system will be able to anticipate and more efficiently address service glitches, thus reducing disruptions and enabling a seamless consumer experience.”

“The recent integration of Mariner’s xVu into ADB’s set-top box technology is the next step in proactive service monitoring,” said Curtis Howe, President and CEO, Mariner. “Mariner’s collaboration with ADB in this venture brings end-to-end service assurance to the set-top box ecosystem, which equips IPTV providers with invaluable insight into the cause of service disturbances, helping them improve the quality of the end user’s experience and reduce call center costs and truck rolls.”

The joint solution is based on TR-069, a Broadband Forum developed protocol for remote management of end user devices.

“The TR-069 protocol provides a single remote management system for the configuration of both fixed and mobile devices, which enables service providers to reduce operating costs for network and set top box management,” says Robin Mersh, COO, Broadband Forum. “The joint service assurance deployment from Mariner and ADB demonstrates the broad range of applications possible with TR-069 and opens the door for even more diversified applications moving forward.”