TelcoTV Announces 2010 Vision Award Winners

IRVINE, Calif. -- TelcoTV 2010, the largest video conference and expo focused on the U.S. service provider market, today announced the winners of the TelcoTV Vision Awards. The awards recognize the most innovative and "visionary" new products, services, and applications announced in the communications industry in the past year.

For the third consecutive year, AT&T won the Innovation Award for category of "10,000+ Video Subscribers." With the company's U-verse Mobile, U-verse TV customers get one-app access to manage recordings and download and watch TV shows on their Wi-Fi enabled smartphone. Within a single application, views can navigate the program guide, schedule and manage DVR recordings, and easily see which shows are available for downloading.

Within the category of "Less Than 10,000 Video Subscribers," Vernon Telephone Cooperative was honored for its Residential Triple Play and Business Ethernet Service. The cooperative provides telephone, digital cable and high-speed Internet services to communities in Western Wisconsin. With its most recent infrastructure upgrade featuring an Extreme Networks solution, Vernon Telephone Cooperative has become a total communications provider for its subscribers.

"This year's TelcoTV Vision Award winners clearly delivered products and services that enable profitability in a multi-screen world," said Joe Braue, Senior Vice President and Group Director for Light Reading, which produces the TelcoTV conference and exhibition. "Our judging panel was comprised of an elite team of service providers, journalists, and analysts. They developed a short list of the best carrier video products and services for 2010 that operators should carefully evaluate in the coming year."

A complete list of winners for each of the eight categories follows:

Broadband Access Networks: Sigma Designs for their Home Plug AV with ClearPath

Sigma Designs, Inc. developed HomePlug AV with ClearPath because it makes the dream of reliable powerline communications a reality. Conforming to the universal HomePlug AV® standard, Sigma's solution has the unique ability to deliver triple play, whole-home DVR, HDTV and 3DTV to every power outlet within the home - even within multi-phased homes, across surge protectors, and through EMI filters.

Conditional Access: Latens Systems for their CAS Release 5

Latens CAS Release 5 is a Software-only Conditional Access for Cable, DTH, DTT, IPTV and Hybrid networks. Latens CAS Release 5 software solution allows content to be securely delivered across all broadband and broadcast platforms. When an operator wishes to expand to other network types, or from one way to return path, they will not have to invest in a new CAS system.

Customer Premises Equipment: Amino for their Amino Freedom

The Amino Freedom hybrid/OTT media center is the first device of its kind that brings broadcast, on demand, 'OTT' open Internet and local content together in a single device. Launched in 2010, the Amino Freedom includes tuner options to support both high definition (HD) and standard definition (SD) broadcast programming.

Encoding: Skitter for their Skitter.TV Acclaim Video Encoder

Skitter.TV's Acclaim encoders offer live MPEG-4 H.264 AVC video encoding at any resolution, from 480i standard definition to 1080i high definition. The Acclaim's standards-compliant video streams are highly efficient, with HD video compressed at an average 3.5 Mbps with peaks to 5 Mbps, and SD video compressed at 1.4 Mbps with peaks to 1.8 Mbps.

Middleware: Alcatel-Lucent for their MicroArchitecture

This new offer is the only IPTV solution that includes Microsoft Mediaroom that can support more than three times as many households using a single equipment rack. Alcatel-Lucent utilized Microsoft's Hyper-V technology in Windows Server 2008 which enables Mediaroom to be run from a single rack of servers where previously 80-120 servers were required to support an IPTV rollout.

Test & Measurement: EXFO for their BrixView IP Video Reports

BrixView IP Video Reports brings the power of Business Intelligence (BI) to IP video test and measurement. The term Business Intelligence refers to the ability to perform personalized multi-dimensional analysis on large data sets, and to present that information in relevant and understandable ways.

Service Provider's Innovation Award - 10,001+ Video Subscribers:

AT&T U-verse Mobile

With U-verse Mobile, U-verse TV customers get one-app access to manage recordings and download and watch TV shows on their Wi-Fi enabled smartphone.

Service Provider's Innovation Award - Less than 10,000 Video Subscribers:

Vernon Telephone Cooperative - Residential Triple Play and Business Ethernet Service

With its most recent infrastructure upgrade featuring an Extreme Networks solution, Vernon Telephone Cooperative has become a total communications provider for its subscribers.

The finalists were determined by a distinguished panel of industry executives and analysts: Joe Braue, SVP, Light Reading; Steve Fravel, Video Services Manager, NTCA; Adi Kishore, Senior Analyst, Heavy Reading; David Lowe, Manager of Business and Technology, NTCA; and Carol Wilson, Chief Editor of Events, Light Reading.

The 2010 TelcoTV Vision Awards winners were announced before an audience of service providers, analysts, and technology and business press at TelcoTV on Wednesday, November 10, at 12:30 p.m. in room Titian 2304 at the Venetian in Las Vegas. The ceremony was preceded by a follow-up study presentation on pay-TV services by Adi Kishore, Senior Analyst at Heavy Reading.

A joint production of TechWeb's Light Reading and the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA), TelcoTV offers a unique venue for solution providers to showcase their new product and service offerings. The event takes place November 9 through 11, 2010 in Las Vegas. This year's theme, "Profiting in a Multi-Screen World," reflects the industry's challenge of making video services work for both consumers and service providers. Visit http://www.TelcoTVonline.com for a complete conference and expo agenda.

United Business Media Ltd. (UBM) (London: UBM.L)