Quative End-to-End Interactive TV Solution Selected by B.Net Croatia for Broadband Cable System

LONDON — IPTV World Forum Stand 176 — Quative Limited, a Kudelski Group (SWX:KUD.VX) company, was selected by B.Net Croatia, the national cable operator in Croatia, to provide an end-to-end interactive TV solution for their broadband cable system. The solution features the award winning Quative Service Platform (QSP) and the Lysis Content Management System (CMS), along with Harmonic’s (NASDAQ: HLIT) complete video delivery solution encompassing compression, stream processing, on-demand delivery and edgeQAMs. As the end-to-end systems integrator, Quative is providing B.Net with a comprehensive and seamless on-demand cable and IPTV solution that simultaneously supports both types of networks.

Today, B.net, a part of the Austrian BEWAG group has over 100,000 cable TV subscribers. The company is using the Quative-based solution to launch a digital TV service in the second quarter of 2008. The service will include standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD) channels with a personal video recorder (PVR) option. During the second half of 2008, B.net plans to add VOD services as well as network based PVR services with time shifting and catch up TV options. The company also has plans to extend its services beyond cable using IPTV over alternate networks such as fibre to the home.

Adrian Jezina, CEO of B.Net Croatia says, “Working with Quative, we will launch an innovative interactive TV service in Croatia to our solid local customer base and extend the initial digital TV service offering with an ambitious roadmap. Quative has provided us with a truly open solutions approach, based on best-in-class industry products, which can be customised to our specific local market needs.”

As the end-to-end systems integrator, Quative is supplying a complete broadcast and on-demand video delivery solution from Harmonic including the DiviCom® Electra 1000 SD and Electra 7000 HD encoders, ProStream™ 1000 stream processing platform with Mentor™ re-encoding technology for digital turnaround, the award-winning NSG 9000 universal edgeQAMs and NMX Digital Service Manager™. Harmonic’s StreamLiner® video servers and Armada® intelligent asset management have been selected as the VOD platform for B.Net’s on-demand service. Technotrend set-top boxes supporting the Quative middleware and applications including the Technotrend C254 hybrid MPEG-2 SD entry level model and C862 MPEG-2/4 SD/HD premium model with optional PVR will also be part of the complete solution.

Sebastian Kramer, CEO Quative Limited says “We look forward to deliver a turnkey digital cable solution to B.Net, which enables us to deliver innovative solutions with the shortest possible time to market while leveraging an open solutions approach centered around a trusted set of technology partnerss.”

The Quative Service Platform (QSP) is based on the industry leading “Service Oriented Architecture” approach where core Java services are fully published to application developers. Different embedded client application environments such as browsers, SVG, or Java for different devices can be supported on a case-by-case basis using independent APIs to ensure the portability of such applications across different vendors’ devices. Using the Quative platform and its server and client side open developer program shortens the time it takes to develop new applications and provides a quicker time to market for new and innovative services.