Cloud-based Managed IPTV Service Debuts

MBO Video LLC announced Tuesday the first cloud-based managed IPTV service, Cirrus Managed Cloud Solutions, designed to reduce capex and opex necessary to offer IPTV services by allowing shared infrastructure.

The solution is made possible by the new v.Unison solution set from 180SQUARED. v.Unison, also released Tuesday, enables a shared installation of an IPTV middleware platform among multiple entities, while maintaining a secure, autonomous environment for each individual entity’s back-end systems and customized offering.

“By sharing the infrastructure and costs, IPTV becomes a much more viable and competitive product offering,” said Gene Baldwin of MBO Video LLC. “We recognized the business potential of IPTV, and we’re eager to supply service providers and other entities, such as hotels and hospitality providers, economies of scale for more robust video solutions. 180SQUARED’s v.Unison encapsulated into the Cirrus Solution allows us to do that and share IPTV offerings with other entities simply and efficiently.”

The Cirrus Managed Cloud Solution is based on Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV middleware platform, which offers onscreen Caller ID (VoIP and TDM compatibility), remote PVR scheduling, Whole Home PVR, and other applications. In addition to these subscriber services, the Cirrus solution provides ongoing maintenance support the installation and subscribing entities.

This is not an over-the-top video play, said Amir Littman, founder and vice president of business development for 180SQUARED, explaining that service providers would “rent” the middleware functions from the sponsoring managed services provider but provide their own access network, back-office infrastructure and content.

While service providers have tried to share in the infrastructure costs before, Littman said the proposition typically breaks down at branding and billing. He said 180SQUARED overcomes that with its Quantum Site Technology, which segregates data at a domain level (subscribers, devices, channel maps, and users) and ensures that while multiple entities share the IPTV Middleware installation, they autonomously manage their own environment for their back-end billing and operational systems integration and management, and are empowered to offer their own branded experiences and unique offerings.

vUnison also includes the v.Maestro IPTV Middleware Integration & Management Platform, which enables service providers to manage, integrate and police multiple, disparate B/OSS systems and third-party applications; the v.Harmonizer Device Provisioning Module, which allows for multiple methods of Set-Top Box (STB) device activation and provisioning; and the v.Harmonizer Billing Adapter Module, which enables the required extraction and auditing of billing events from the IPTV Middleware to the billing systems in the formats that the systems require.

Using the v.Maestro platform, v.Unison integrates into a service provider’s network and back-end systems. For example, MBO Video affiliates, Cimarron Telephone, Cim-Tel Cable and Pottawatomie Telephone use MACC’s Customer Master Software for customer care and end-user billing. MACC developed an interface between Customer Master and the v.Maestro Integration and Management platform to automatically provision IPTV customers in Microsoft Mediaroom.

What’s more is that I80SQUARED handles all the integration between the MSP and the reseller’s billing provider.

Littman said the option to become an MSP or to buy from an MSP can completely change the business case for offering IPTV services. Instead of only AT&T, Verizon and a few sizable regional IPTV offers, he said the potential exists for several regional cloud-based networks to pop up, enabling smaller service providers to offer IPTV service quickly and at one-tenth the cost of doing it themselves.

He said the platform supports a for-profit business model or a shared-cost model and he expects that it could be used for both scenarios.

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