Technicolor announced that it has been selected by Grupo Hevi, one of the five biggest cable television operators in Mexico, to deliver a complete class 5 residential and business telephony solution. Based on Technicolor’s Cirpack softswitch, it provides high quality voice over IP services over Grupo Hevi’s digital cable network, with advanced services including IP centrex for business users and secure gateways for the rest of the telephone network.

The Technicolor Cirpack softswitch is a widely used and highly regarded voice over IP solution. It is built around a high density and high availability solution based on redundant hardware, providing excellent security and quality of service combined with unique space and energy efficiency. Grupo Hevi’s implementation is based on a centralized control architecture capable of managing up to 32 distributed media gateways for excellent flexibility.

Because it is built on open standards, Cirpack is capable of handling multiple telephone protocols and interfaces through its integrated media and signaling gateways. It supports all advanced interconnections including SIP, SS7, ISDN and R2 as well as MGCP/NCS, H.248 and V5.2 for access. Built into the software is the full range of legacy and latest IP functionalities to provide a feature-rich offering to domestic customers and business tools – including IP centrex – to enterprise subscribers.

In response to the requirements of existing and new customers, Comarch has extended its offer to cable operators competing with other service providers. Although TV services remain the fundamental revenue stream, significant income growth originates from high-speed Internet and telephony services, highlighting why companies traditionally perceived as cable operators are transforming towards Multi-Service Operators (MSO).

Within this transformation process, cable operators must modify their offers and tailor them to the individual customer's needs, in order to deliver a truly rewarding customer experience, thus retaining existing and winning new customers. Changes to the ways in which cable operators address their customers' means improvements to their BSS/OSS systems are required. For this reason, Comarch reaches out to cable TV providers with its end-to-end solution for cable operators.

This dedicated Comarch solution for Cable Operators helps raise the revenue per subscriber and is flexible enough to support any future expansion of the operator. It is also focused on removing all limits to marketing creativity and ensuring error-free billing, complete control and security of financial operations, field force automation, robust support in day-to-day operations and more. 

Four months before its opening, ANGA Cable, Europe’s leading Trade Fair and Congress for Cable, Broadband and Satellite is nearly fully booked. The organizer has received more than 300 exhibitor registrations – demand for floor space is higher than that of the previous year at the corresponding point in time. The registrations already account for more than 90 percent of the available floor space.

ANGA Cable Show will take place 4 - 6 May 2010 and comprises an exhibition and an international congress. The organizer, who is not tied to any exhibition site, has opted once again for the Cologne Fairground in 2010. In 2009 there were 383 exhibitors and more than 13,600 trade visitors from over 69 countries. 42 % of the visitors travelled to ANGA Cable from abroad.

The highlights of the congress which takes place alongside the exhibition are the German Strategy Summit and the International Broadband Summit. Participants will include top level representatives from Alcatel-Lucent, Cable Labs, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom, Eutelsat, Kabel Baden-Württemberg, Kabel Deutschland, Liberty Global, Motorola, NetCologne, ProSiebenSat.1, SES Astra, Unitymedia, YouSee, and ZDF. All 20 congress events will be translated simultaneously (German/English).

The number of Dutch consumer VoIP subscriptions grew 2.8 percent during the third quarter, to 3.43 million at the end of September 2009, according to Telecompaper’s Dutch Fixed Telephony Q3 2009 report. The growth was driven by cable VoIP, with 3.2 percent growth during the quarter, while DSL reported quarterly growth of 2.1 percent, picking up compared with 1.4 percent during the second quarter of 2009.

The total fixed telephony market grew by slightly more than 16,000 connections during the third quarter of 2009 to 5.96 million, despite a 3.8 percent drop in PSTN/ISDN connections to 2.106 million on 30 September 2009. The number of Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) users grew by around 1.4 percent during the quarter to 421,000 on 30 September 2009.

“While VoIP growth is slowing, we estimate a 3 percent increase in subscriber numbers for the fourth quarter of 2009, reaching 3.5 million users by year-end,” said Kamiel Albrecht, Senior Analyst at Telecompaper and the report’s author. “For 2010, we expected quarterly growth of between 2.5 and 3 percent.”

KPN saw its share of the Dutch digital telephony market decrease by 0.2 percentage points during the quarter to 34 percent on 30 September 2009. Ziggo is second with 27.5 percent market share, growing by 0.5 points during the quarter, and UPC remained third at 17.4 percent, despite a drop of 0.4 percentage points.

• The overall broadband CPE market includes broadband modems, routers, and residential gateway equipment for DSL, cable, Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH), Fixed Wireless Broadband (FWB), and Fixed Satellite Broadband (FSB).
• VoIP-enabled DSL CPE unit shipments saw healthy growth in 2008. More than half of DSL CPE unit shipments will be VoIP enabled in 2009. Worldwide SOHO/Home Routers with VoIP also grew strongly with over 40% unit growth. 
• The FTTH CPE segment, which includes ONTs and FTTH Gateways, will see a nearly 20% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) through 2013. 
• The majority of global FWB subscribers are now WiMAX. Asia/Pacific has the lead in FWB subscribers and CPE shipments, followed by Europe. In 2011, Asia/Pacific should capture over 50% share of the annual FWB CPE shipments.

• In 2010, average PC home network throughput will exceed 150 Mbps in North America, ahead of throughput in Asia/Pacific and European households.
• Nearly 2/3 of consumer respondents from In-Stat’s survey expressed an interest in watching Internet Video on their TV 
• Two segregated home networks (HN) have been evolving– A service provider-centric network, and a PC-centric network. Each is leveraging different business models and technologies.
  

• Overview of the integrated digital home vision.
• The driving factors why networking over coax and phone wiring will be an integral part of that vision. 
• Why networking over coax and phone wiring is still primarily deployed in North America. 
• Key trends shaping current global deployments. 
• The growth potential of North American household service provider in-home entertainment networks and worldwide chipset shipments for 2007–2013. 
• MoCA and HomePNA shipments are segmented separately for 2007–2009. 
• Key current vendor ecosystems for MoCA and HomePNA, and comparisons of MoCA, HomePNA, and the developing ITU-T G.hn. 
• North American 2009 consumer survey results reflecting familiarity of and interest in purchasing coax/phone wiring adapters, interest in and price willing to pay for whole-home DVR services, and popular uses of home networks.
  

Two months before its start, ANGA Cable, Europe’s leading Trade Fair for Cable, Broadband and Satellite, matches last year’s record booking level. The international meeting place for the broadband industry counts more than 360 exhibitor bookings from 32 countries for 95 percent of the space booked in the previous year. In the record year 2008, 369 exhibitors showcased on 22,000 sqm gross exhibition space. This year’s ANGA Cable will take place from 26 to 28 May in Cologne (Germany).

An essential part of the accompanying congress and the highlight of the English programme will be the international Broadband Summit. Under the headline „Cable versus Wireless: Next Generation Competitors?“ CEOs and CTOs from five countries will discuss the effects of new wireless networks (such as LTE and Wimax) on the broadband competition in Europe: Svein Erik Davidsen (Canal Digital Norway), Nick Fielibert (Cisco), Thomas Hintze (UPC Austria), David Keeley (Motorola), Martin Kull (Com Hem Sweden), Philippe Le May (Numericable France), Parm Sandhu (Unitymedia Germany) and Wim Sweldens (Alcatel-Lucent). The Broadband Summit will be presented by Julian Clover (Editorial Director Broadband TV News).

The second highlight of the congress, the Strategy Summit, will again be the floor for the top representatives of German network operators and content providers. With Thomas Braun (President ANGA Association of German Cable Operators) as the host of the event and Dr. Adrian von Hammerstein (CEO Kabel Deutschland), Parm Sandhu (CEO Unitymedia), Markus Schmid (CEO Tele Columbus), Harald Rösch (CEO Kabel Baden-Württemberg), Werner Hanf (CEO NetCologne), Ferdinand Kayser (President and CEO SES ASTRA) and Pro­f Dr Carl-Eugen Eberle (General Counsel ZDF), there will be a first-class panel discussion on the future of broadband and Triple Play in Germany. ProSiebenSat.1 Board Member Dr. Marcus Englert completes the discussion.

ANGA, the Association of German Cable Operators, today joined Cable Europe, the European Cable Communications Association, at its meeting of members, which took place as part of Cable Congress 2009 (March 18 to 20) in Berlin. At the same time, ANGA Board member and Unitymedia CEO Parm Sandhu was appointed to Cable Europe's executive committee. ANGA’s accession and the appointment of Parm Sandhu took place in order to support the association long-term in its tasks at European level. As a Board member of ANGA, Parm Sandhu already represents the German cable industry’s interests at international level.

Cable Europe represents the interests of the leading European cable operators and their national associations in regulatory affairs and technical development issues.  Collectively, the member companies of Cable Europe supply more than 73 million customers throughout Europe. Within this portfolio, there are 64.9 million TV customers, more than 16 million customers with Internet access, and over 12 million customers with telephony services.

ANGA President Thomas Braun commented: “We are delighted that Cable Europe now also represents our interests in Brussels. With Parm Sandhu an experienced representative of the German cable industry has been appointed who at the same time has the international expertise to represent the interests of our industry at European level.”

Commenting on his appointment, Parm Sandhu said, "I am delighted to be playing an active part in supporting the work of Cable Europe. More and more legal and regulatory decisions taken in Brussels are having a major influence on the German cable industry. It is important that we underscore the significance of the German cable market as one of Europe's principal markets, while at the same time vigorously representing the industry together with our European partners. Germany alone has almost 20 million cable customers and, buoyed by new services comprising Internet access, telephony and digital TV, has been seeing strong growth for several years. Both consumers and entire branches of industry are benefiting from the strength of cable, especially in view of the current strained economic climate. However, in the past, unlike DSL cable was often overlooked by the political sector. With this in mind, we need a strong voice to represent our dynamic sector's interests in Brussels."

Cable telephony subscriber growth continues to be strong, with almost 8 million new subscribers added around the world over the past 12 months, reports In-Stat. Growth in North America has been particularly strong, as cable operators near the end of their transition to voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP)-enabled network architectures, the high-tech market research firm says.

"Current priorities for cable telephony service providers are expanding the availability of their service and attracting business end-users, especially small and medium-sized businesses," says Mike Paxton, In-Stat analyst.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

- Worldwide cable telephony service revenues are on track to reach $12.6 billion in 2008, up from $10.7 billion in 2007.

- Total worldwide cable telephony subscribers are projected to reach 37 million by the end of 2008, and rise to over 64 million by 2012.

- In the US, questions remain about whether or not the cable service bundle needs to have a wireless voice component. While wireless service is an integral part of the service bundle in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom, the collapse of the Pivot joint venture in the US has put wireless service on the back burner for most US cable operators.

The research, "34 Million Subscribers: Worldwide Cable Telephony Services Continue to Expand", covers the worldwide market for cable telephony. It discusses the business case for cable telephony services, discusses the availability of the service, and examines specific network architectures. In addition, it updates leading cable TV operator telephony deployment strategies and presents the results of a US cable telephony subscriber consumer survey. It provides forecasts for worldwide cable telephony subscribers, VoIP cable telephony subscribers, and installed cable telephony lines through 2012. It also forecasts cable telephony service revenues and "Voice-over-Broadband" cable telephony subscribers over the next five years.

Althoug CAT-iq offers much more than telephony alone, this indicates that the cable market can and will be a supporter of CAT-iq technology.