Ericsson signs agreement with Sonaecom for world's first trial of IMS-integrated IPTV middleware

Friday, September 12th, 2008
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Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) announced today it has signed an agreement with Portuguese triple play operator Sonaecom (Lisbon:SNC) to provide and integrate its open, standards-based, end-to-end IPTV solution. It includes Ericsson’s new IMS-based IPTV middleware and enables the operator to deliver personalized and interactive TV experiences to its subscribers.

Under this Prime Integrator agreement, Ericsson will upgrade Sonaecom’s IPTV system by delivering and integrating a next-generation, end-to-end IPTV solution. This will bring together Ericsson solutions including its new IMS-based IPTV middleware and network infrastructure, as well as TANDBERG Television’s high-definition and standard-definition video processing platform. Deployment and trial has started.

Ericsson’s IPTV Middleware is the world’s first solution to be pre-integrated with IMS. Its flexibility and scalability will enable Sonaecom to quickly create, test and deploy differentiated TV services in order to provide an individual entertainment and communication package for consumers that includes interactive and mobile functionality. The Ericsson IPTV ecosystem is based on open standards, designed to comply with the Open IPTV Forum specifications.

José Pinto Correia, CTO, at Sonaecom, says: “Ericsson’s complete solution will help us achieve our IPTV vision of bringing our customers personalized and interactive multimedia services, and provides us with the integration skills we need to deliver to consumers an individualized TV experience across multiple networks.”

Jan Wäreby, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Unit Multimedia, Ericsson, says: “Creating the individual TV experience requires a combination of skills taken from the world of telecoms and television. This experience must reach wider than just television, further than just mobile, and beyond the limits of fixed-line networks. Helping operators to address this is central to Ericsson’s TV solutions offering. This new IPTV ecosystem is transforming the worlds of communications and entertainment to deliver an open, carrier-class TV solution that drives the future of truly converged and blended services.”

Hans-Erhard Reiter, President of Ericsson Portugal, says: “The strong combination of Ericsson’s IPTV offering, systems integration capabilities and local personnel will provide Sonaecom with a scalable, robust, end-to-end IMS-based solution to build its television business and offer advanced, revenue-generating services to its customers.”

The world’s first IMS-integrated IPTV middleware will be showed at IBC on September 11-16, 2008 in Amsterdam. The Ericsson booth is at D61 in Hall 1.

Based on its technology leadership and expertise in business and technology consulting, network deployment and systems integration, Ericsson is well-positioned to take on the role of prime integrator.