The National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC) signed a multi-year agreement with SES AMERICOM to offer IPTV services to nearly one thousand independent and local telcos across the U.S. using SES AMERICOM's "IP-PRIME" distribution platform.
The centralized, satellite-delivered IPTV solution originates from SES AMERICOM's IPTV Broadcast Center in Vernon Valley, New Jersey, where high-end video programming and content is received, processed, and then transported by SES AMERICOM's AMC-9 satellite to authorized video hubs nationwide. The NRTC IPTV offering is an end-to-end solution to the IP set-top, which includes conditional access and middleware and greatly reduces headend and video operations and equipment costs.
IP-PRIME will enable small telcos to distribute hundreds of television channels. The first NRTC member telcos expect to begin trials of IP-PRIME in January 2006. A full NRTC commercial launch of IPTV aboard the IP-PRIME platform is scheduled for the second quarter of 2006.
http://www.nrtc.coophttp://ses-americom.com
- The AMERICOM-9 (AMC-9) satellite, which was launched in June 2003, is a hybrid C/Ku-band satellite based on Alcatel's Spacebus 3000B3 platform. The C-band payload features 24 - 36 MHz transponders, while the Ku-band payload features 24 - 36 MHz transponders.
