Featured Story
AT&T struggles to defend open cloudiness of Ericsson deal
More than a year into the Ericsson-led rollout, there is very little evidence AT&T's radio access network is as multivendor and virtualized as the telco makes out.
Frankfort Plant Board selects Evolution low-cost DTAs
August 12, 2009
CENTENNIAL, Colo. -- Evolution Digital, LLC, a leading supplier of digital solutions for bandwidth reclamation and next generation advanced set-top boxes, has been selected to provide the Frankfort Plant Board (FPB), a municipal cable operator based in Frankfort, Kentucky, with digital to analog converters (DTAs). The converters allow FPB to reclaim analog bandwidth to use to launch more HD channels and roll-out advanced services.
FPB ran a thorough analysis on three of their options for going all-digital, fiber overlay, switched digital and bandwidth reclamation through DTAs. They concluded DTAs to be the most cost-effective and fastest to market.
“We realized we were channel locked and running out of space on our 750 MHz system,” explained John Higginbotham, FPB Cable/Telecom Superintendent. “We need to reclaim bandwidth in order to launch more HD to retain customers and continue to compete in the market. Today there is no space for VOD roll-out or DOCSIS 3.0. Over 70% of our subscribers have cable modems, and we can see the need for speed only increasing. Evolution’s DTA gives us the ability to reclaim between 280-300 MHz, allowing us the potential to launch up to 60 additional HD services.”
FPB is launching Evolution’s DTA with embedded Conax Content Security utilizing Evolution’s FCC product waiver. Through this product waiver, Evolution provides Frankfort an inexpensive alternative to both protect their content and uphold their programming contracts by deploying extremely low-cost DTA’s including Conax’s full encryption content security.
Frankfort Plant Board has over 17,000 subscribers and plans to begin their digital transition in October of this year. FPB initially plans to deploy on a node by node basis. “One of the added benefits of using the Evolution DTA is our 3-year product waiver from the FCC,” explains Chris Egan, COO/Principal, Evolution. “This 3-year time period allows Frankfort to rollout at their own pace while paying attention to subscriber feedback through the installation process.”
“Evolution has designed the DTA to be easily installed by end-users,” says Egan. “Evolution’s self-install kit allows operators to mail subscribers the DTA which includes the quick start guide, AV cables, IR extender, universal remote control and 3 ft jumpers. There is absolutely no premise activation required, the subscribers can simply plug-in and have access to digital programming within minutes.”
Evolution Broadband LLC
You May Also Like