Alcatel-Lucent's Interactive Media Manager Now Supporting EBIF and tru2way

At the NCTA Cable Show in Washington, DC last week, Franco-American telecommunications equipment giant, Alcatel-Lucent, signaled its intent to target the US cable market by announcing that its 5930 Interactive Media Manager (IMM) now supports both EBIF and tru2way. Alcatel-Lucent bills the IMM as a "write-once-deploy-many" solution that enables content providers to easily and affordably design, create and manage interactive TV applications and advertisements for multiple platforms, including mobiles and PC's, as well as IPTV and digital satellite and terrestrial, and now digital cable. It features a design, build and publishing tool-set, together with a series of pre-tested Web-based templates.

Alcatel-Lucent also says that its Bell Labs division is developing a broad range of enhanced interactive applications that provide mobile, call-back and other digital media redemption capabilities to brands and advertisers. This, the company claims, combined with the IMM, will ensure "increased success" for EBIF and tru2way. "This is an excellent opportunity for Alcatel-Lucent to provide its wealth of knowledge and experience in building and delivering interactive solutions to the cable industry," Mark Janes, VP of Alcatel-Lucent's digital media and advertising operations, said in a prepared statement. "Cable operators, content producers and agencies using Alcatel-Lucent's IMM solution will be able to quickly adapt to their viewers' fast-changing needs, thanks to the huge flexibility and scalability of our solution's design, build and template-based architecture. What makes the IMM unique is its open-standards approach, complementing and working with existing parts of the value chain to deliver interactivity. Its easy-to-use, intuitive, Web-based tools are ideal for editors, producers, and agencies to design, create, publish and manage interactive TV services as often as they desire."

In other recent interactive TV-related news from Alcatel-Lucent:
--Last month, the company announced that the IMM and its companion solution, the Alcatel-Lucent Multimedia Content Manager, now support the Microsoft Mediaroom Presentation Framework (for more on this, see the story published on itvt.com on April 5th).
--The company announced last week that it has been chosen by Korea's SKbroadband (formerly Hanaro Telecom) to supply and maintain a service-routing solution in order to support the operator's IPTV service. The company says that its IP/MPLS technology will enable SKbroadband to deliver a range of advanced services, including real-time IPTV services, HDTV, VOD, voice-over-IP and high-speed Internet access. SKbroadband claims to have the highest broadband penetration in Korea and says it has a multi-year plan to deploy advanced IPTV services throughout the country. Alcatel-Lucent says it will provide the operator with a "flexible and reliable" IP/MPLS infrastructure, enabling "massive" scalability, bandwidth on-demand, and increased service-level guarantees. "Advanced broadband services, such as real-time IPTV, place demands on the network that traditional routing solutions simply cannot handle," Won Shin, president of Alcatel-Lucent's Korean operations, said in a prepared statement. "Our solution offers SKbroadband an IP service delivery infrastructure that offers more bandwidth, delivered reliably to more customers simultaneously, with increased service level guarantees. We will leverage our experience in project-managing the deployment of complex network solutions, integrating triple-play applications and IPTV networks to ensure SKbroadband meets its plans to introduce a new level of broadband services to its customers throughout Korea." Its deal with SKbroadband calls for Alcatel-Lucent to supply the operator with its 7750 Service Router in the core and aggregation levels of its network. Alcatel-Lucent claims that over 260 service providers in more than 100 countries have selected its IP/MPLS solutions.
--At the IPTV World Forum last month, the company announced that it has been collaborating with Telefonica on an extensive interactive TV advertising proof-of-concept pilot for customers of the latter's Imagenio IPTV service throughout Spain. It says it has provided the telco with an innovative application-enablement solution, based on the 5930 Interactive Media Manager, that brings increased interactivity and Web 2.0 features to the Imagenio user experience: the resulting service allows viewers to use their remotes to access, in real time, Web-based interactive content (including information, games and competitions) linked to advertised products and brands, and also enables measurement of the audience's response to this content for improved targeting. Alcatel-Lucent bills the service as providing "a new type of TV advertising business model that combines the advanced functionality of the service provider's network with the Web creativity of the advertising world to offer high-margin, high-value targeted interactive campaigns." "We worked closely with Telefonica to develop and launch this strategic proof-of-concept pilot, and we have successfully demonstrated that this new advertising model is possible," Alfredo Redondo, Alcatel-Lucent's global account leader for Telefonica, said in a prepared statement. "This is a model that is more rewarding for the user as it matches his lifestyle and interests, and is more effective for advertisers as they now have a powerful new tool for reaching their target audiences and measuring their campaign's success."
--In February, the company announced that its end-to-end IPTV solution, which includes Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV and multimedia software platform, is powering a new nationwide IPTV offering from Dominican Republic telco (now triple-play provider), Codetel. The offering features various advanced services, including VOD, DVR, pause-live-TV, picture-in-picture and interactive TV karaoke. In addition to Microsoft Mediaroom and its own "triple-play service delivery architecture (TPSDA)," Alcatel-Lucent is providing Codetel with professional services such as network integration, project management, network design and optimization, and maintenance. "This launch sets the stage for the convergence of the telecommunications and entertainment industries in the Dominican Republic and gives Codetel an important new tool to expand its relationship with its subscribers by supporting a range of compelling new services," Victor Agnellini, president of Alcatel-Lucent's operations in the Caribbean and Latin America region, said in a prepared statement. "Codetel can ensure that its customers have access to a top-quality video experience through Alcatel-Lucent's unique Video Operation Center, which provides video session monitoring and management to safeguard the quality and reliability of the service."