NDS MediaHighway Enables New HbbTV Service from Alcatel-Lucent for Tele Columbus

Thursday, May 5th, 2011
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  • Tele Columbus to launch new HbbTV service building on NDS set-top box software
  • Solution to be showcased at ANGA Cable by both NDS (stand B18/10.2) and Alcatel-Lucent (stand D19/10.2)
  • Partners to benefit from regional targeting capabilities

COLOGNE, Germany — ANGA Cable Show 2011 — NDS Group, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, and Tele Columbus, one of the leading German cable operators, today announced their cooperation for the launch of a new HbbTV service. The new service will be developed and hosted by Alcatel-Lucent, running on NDS MediaHighway® set-top-box software.

In addition to their existing encrypted Free-TV and Pay-TV offering, the new HbbTV service will provide Tele Columbus with the opportunity to make supplementary content and services available to subscribers, including video streaming and regional programming. The HbbTV service will be delivered over broadband to hybrid IP enabled set-top boxes across the Tele Columbus network.

To facilitate the addition of value-added content and application-based services, Tele Columbus will work with content owners, publishing houses, web portals and regional companies to launch HbbTV applications within the Tele Columbus network. Partners will be provided with a template HbbTV application interface that can be tailored to their requirements and populated with content and information. New applications can either be made available across the entire Tele Columbus HbbTV network or targeted to specific regions and local areas.

Dietmar Schickel, Chief Commercial Officer at Tele Columbus commented: “The new HbbTV service will complement our linear and interactive TV product world as one of the most advanced offerings in the German market. We have prepared this step carefully through the launch of a new hybrid receiver at the beginning of 2010. With NDS and Alcatel Lucent, we have found the right partners for the further strategic and technological development of our digital TV platform and hardware base.”

Tele Columbus already benefit from an end-to-end technology solution from NDS, including NDS MediaHighway set-top box software, NDS VideoGuard® content protection technology and the NDS XTV DVR solution.

Holger Preckel, head of Multimedia Integration Alcatel-Lucent Germany stated: “We are glad to work together with NDS to support Tele Columbus in the evolution of their leading and innovative product offering. This project is a great example on how our customers can benefit from Alcatel-Lucent’s SaaS driven iTV approach which enables Tele Columbus to extend their services in a very efficient and flexible way.”

Yves Padrines, NDS VP Sales Europe & General Manager NDS GmbH, said: “HbbTV is a great example of a service enhancement that can be easily deployed allowing to the flexibility of MediaHighway. We are proud to be enabling the technical basis for this innovative service in partnership with Alcatel-Lucent and look forward to supporting Tele Columbus throughout the deployment and beyond.”

Tele Columbus plan to launch the new HbbTV service towards the end of 2011.