September 2, 2008

UTStarcom & Aksh to Power BSNL's IPTV Service

UTStarcom announced a contract with Aksh Optifibre to deploy UTStarcom's end-to-end RollingStream IPTV solution in 20 cities on Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Ltd. (BSNL)'s ADSL 2+ network, a UTStarcom-built multiplay infrastructure that currently supports more than 75 percent of the active wirelines in India.

The IPTV offering which will be made available to more than 250,000 BSNL broadband subscribers in 20 cities throughout India with Aksh's iControl service, gives both large cities and small towns the opportunity to experience interactive entertainment such as time-shifting, video-on-demand (VOD), interactive gaming, live television voting and distance learning programs.

"Demand for IPTV in India is increasing exponentially and UTStarcom is supplying Aksh with the solutions and infrastructure it needs to continue that momentum," said Dr. Kailash S. Choudhari, chairman and managing director at Aksh Optifibre, Ltd. "UTStarcom's understanding of the market and ability to produce cutting-edge technology allows Aksh to easily advance its IPTV strategy in India and improve the viewing experience for our customers, while also meeting internal operational goals."

BSNL currently delivers the most comprehensive portfolio of communications services and maintains the greatest reach of all broadband and wireline operators in India; as a result, both Aksh and UTStarcom's IPTV footprint within India will increase significantly in terms of scope of deployments and total commercially-deployed customer base upon completion of this BSNL IPTV network. Aksh, one of India's leading optical fibre cable manufacturers and one of the first companies in India to set up its own fibre optic manufacturing units, is also expected to become the largest provider of IPTV support services in India upon completion of this IPTV system. Aksh is the leader in IPTV service with the largest subscriber base in India.

UTStarcom has long-standing relationships with both Aksh and BSNL for IPTV, broadband and NGN-related deployments. Last month, UTStarcom and Aksh announced their collaboration to deliver high-quality IPTV services to subscribers of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) in Mumbai, India, extending the reach of the operator's service area following its initial commercial IPTV deployment in Delhi. In 2007, UTStarcom partnered with BSNL to supply 1.3 million lines of its Metro Ethernet Forum-certified NetRing(TM) 10000i STM-64 optical transport solution and iAN-8000 multiservice access node (MSAN) solution to build and launch new multiplay broadband Internet services.

"India is moving toward becoming a top IPTV market and companies such as Aksh and BSNL are making inroads to turn those aspirations into reality," said Vijay Yadav, vice president and managing director, South Asia operations, UTStarcom. "RollingStream's unique end-to-end architecture allows it to be both flexible and long-reaching in scope to support deployments in a small populated town or an entire country or region. Through BSNL's network and UTStarcom technology, Aksh will build an iControl IPTV base that will change the way most of India utilizes television in their daily lives."

UTStarcom's RollingStream(R) end-to-end IPTV system currently supports more than 956,000 live IPTV subscribers globally and maintains a current total system capacity of more than 2.5 million subscribers as a result of recent successful deployments in China with China Netcom and China Telecom, in India with Bharti Airtel, BSNL/Aksh, MTNL/Aksh and United Telecoms Limited, in Sri Lanka with SLT, in Japan with Softbank, in Latin America with Brasil Telecom and in Taiwan with Markwell.

 

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