Broadband InfoVision Awards preview update from September 2011

With less than a month to go until the Broadband InfoVision Awards in Paris, we examine the shortlist for Category 6 – Broadband Home: Appliances, Devices, Home Networks & Services.

Alcatel-Lucent has been nominated for this award for its Home Media Sharing (HMS) solution, which supports a service provider in its efforts to play a prominent role in delivering the personal content (such as photos, videos and music) in a home’s digital ecosystem. It provides a range of capabilities such as content management, multi-screen playing, security and storage. It also enables users to access their content remotely or share their content selectively and securely with family and friends.

The solution leverages a service logic that runs from servers located in the cloud under the service provider’s control, thus reducing the amount of processing power and complexity required from the home environment. The solution is supported in the home thanks to a few software components (content discovery and management applications running on the PC, a control proxy running on the Home Gateway, and a control experience delivered from browser or client applications running on end-user devices).

PCCW Media, part of Hong Kong telecoms giant PCCW, has reached the shortlist for its Stargazr IPTV user interface, which integrates programme listings, on-demand videos, interactive services and personalisation. Stargazr seeks to streamline the TV experience with an easy-to-use remote control and onscreen interface.

Stargazr has prioritised the most frequently-used functions of a remote control, to the point where users can navigate through the entire portal using just the “OK”, “Back” and direction buttons. The UI also remembers a user’s personal preferences, provides a complete view of programme times and details, offers Favourite channels, and delivers search capabilities based on three different filters – category, genre and date.

Next up on the shortlist is Technicolor, which has been nominated for its TG799n home gateway. This device automatically detects the format and speed of the wireless access network (WAN) and adapts its configuration accordingly, reducing the total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for operator intervention.

On the subscriber’s side, there are four Gigabit Ethernet ports and two USB mast ports for the connection of devices such as printers, as well as a hard disk for sharing rich media around the home. The device has an embedded high-speed WiFi 802.11n, and is equipped with dual concurrent WiFi to allow separate data and video channels for an optimal user experience. The Technicolor TG799n is also equipped with DECT to ensure high-quality voice conversations.

Chinese firm ZTE has been shortlisted for its ZTE B700v3 Convergent Set-Top-Box, which combines an operator’s IPTV features with carrier-grade delivery of OTT videos and applications, and also enables the sharing of home and local media.

ZTE describes “carrier-grade OTT” as a new concept whereby operator-provided home media devices located in the subscriber’s home can intelligently support OTT applications and videos with certain levels of Quality of Service (QoS) assurance instead of “best-effort” only. The ZTE B700v3 home media device achieves this through service type-based DSCP/QoS tagging or VLAN separation. The device also features a built-in MoCA (Multimedia over Coax) interface with a built-in Ethernet-to-MoCA bridge that can connect to any existing home gateway.

Finally, ZyXEL Communications has been nominated for this award for its NSA310 series of network storage appliances. The NSA310 Series can be customised to integrate into the existing services of telcos and service providers, enabling improved services that save on maintenance costs and increase user satisfaction. This also means that subscribers can access paid-content services across multiple platforms, and provides service providers with easy centralised management of end-user devices.

The ZyXEL NSA310 Series also provides telcos and service providers with new applications that can attract end-users into subscribing to high-speed broadband as well as digital home services. Using the DLNA 1.5-certified ZyXEL NAS as a home media server, users can easily share, stream and play digital media collections through DLNA-capable clients such as HDTV, mobile phones or media players without having to install special drivers.

The Broadband InfoVision Awards will be held in Paris on September 27th during a Gala Dinner Presentation aboard a river cruise on the Seine, travelling through the heart of the French capital. For more information and to register, please click here