VideoTele.com feeling ‘at home’ with BTexact

For VideoTele.com, it’s nothing but a house party. The Oregon-based technology vendor is integrating its network processing equipment with a multivendor DSL access network showcase with BTexact Technologies Broadband Home Broadband Office in Ipswich, U.K.

The demo home and office has been built and configured to enable VideoTele.com (VT.c) and others to verify interoperability and demonstrate bundled video-centric broadband services delivered over an end-to-end VDSL-based platform.

“It’s a very well furnished apartment where the data comes into the kitchen and the video is seen in various parts of the house,” said Chuck VanDusen, VT.c’s CTO. “They even have a network-connected exercise bicycle that is an Internet appliance.”

BTexact, British Telecom’s research & development arm, is testing vendor interoperability delivering MPEG video content. VT.c is participating with three different set-top boxes, including customer premises equipment, a residential gateway and distributed customer premises equipment like a modem and a home network, VanDusen said.

The lab trial, he said, is typical of the work being done internationally, where video-over-DSL has gained a much stronger foothold than in the U.S., where cable and direct broadcast satellite are more formidable foes.

Nevertheless, an important facet of any kind of video delivery is interoperability, which is why the British tests are so important, said VanDusen.

“Extremely large customers such as the PTTs in Europe and the RBOCs in the United States insist on having multiple vendors for any service-dependent implementation,” he said.