Nortel takes its stab at IPTV

SAN DIEGO--Nortel officially rolled out its take on IPTV today at the Telco TV show with a product plan that relies heavily on the company’s progress in the SIP environment.

Like most vendors, Nortel is using the same marketing approach to video, noting that the service is key to its traditional carrier customers’ survival in the converged world. However, unlike others, the company isn’t necessarily rolling out any significant new capabilities to go with the launch. Instead, it has established an ecosystem of other vendors: Harmonic, BitBand, Orca, Minerva, Kasenna, Optibase and Espial. Additionally, the company has established an interoperability lab in Ottawa where it also will test out new applications.

“We’re looking at a packaged offering that has gone through a very robust test process,” said Walt Megura, general manager of Nortel’s broadband group. “The other piece we’re trying to leverage is our SIP-base multimedia communications technology and merge that with the experience on the TV.”

In the Nortel view, IPTV becomes just one service albeit an important one in the total communications and entertainment package. Among the services the company is targeting are instant messaging and other communications via TV. Personalization of the viewing experience also will play a big role, Megura said.

Perhaps the bigger question is whether the company can capture a lead role in larger deployments. To that end, Megura believes Nortel will be able to rely on its experience in other markets and its role as a trusted vendor.

“We see it as a combination services play with the experience we have rolling large optical networks,” he said.