Intelsat gears up for IPTV delivery

Intelsat has built a new “super headend” infrastructure to facilitate the delivery of television programming using the IPTV scheme. Called Ampiage, the new satellite-based, content delivery and management service will help pay TV operators' upgrade to MPEG-4 and launch IPTV services.

Ampiage will upgrade and convert video streams for MSOs from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 for both higher transmission quality and efficient use of bandwidth. The service is designed to include redundant facilities and transmission capacity.

The new service is targeted to telcos entering the TV delivery business and cable operators seeking a cost-effective way to upgrade to MPEG-4 without having to invest in new equipment.

Ampiage cost-effectively packages the acquisition, aggregation, encoding, encapsulation and encryption of licensed TV programming from content providers and has the ability to redistribute it in MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 format to cable and telecom service providers.

The service centralizes the aggregation of national TV content and offers hundreds of digital video and audio channels. This enables telcos to efficiently bundle a standard- and high-definition programming package with their voice and broadband services without incurring a significant upgrade cost.

Telcos and MSOs then distribute this programming via xDSL, fiber, conventional cable networks and other broadband networks to their residential subscribers across North America. The system's open architecture will enable operators to either leverage existing equipment (including set-top boxes) or choose new equipment from multiple providers.

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