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GlobeCast Launches Operation of IPTV Super Headend; Builds Out New Technical Operations Center in Miami; New Facility Raises the Bar for IP Television Services and New Content Management OfferingsMIAMI --(Business Wire)-- Nov. 16, 2005 -- GlobeCast - a leading global content management and delivery company and subsidiary of France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) - has completed the build out of its new Technical Operations Center (TOC) in Miami. The new center is designed to support the company's newly inaugurated IPTV Super Headend, capable of aggregating hundreds of television signals from around the globe in MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, and providing IP encapsulation and retransmission of content via satellite for distribution to "local" IPTV headends across North America. The upgrade of the Miami facility is a central component to the company's expanding offer of fully managed content delivery services for emerging IP-based video and rich media. All current and future IPTV services, including IPTVComplete - a joint offering with Eagle Broadband (AMEX: EAG) providing more than 200 channels via IP video - will originate from the new TOC in Miami, situated at GlobeCast's existing 85,000 square foot digital broadcast complex. GlobeCast's plan and design considerations have maximized the facility's versatility enabling it to deliver and manage its wide range of IP-based Content Management Services, including IPTV. Technical capabilities at the TOC enable the use of multiple compression technologies and allow compatibility with multiple middleware providers. The TOC's throughput capacity of the uplink infrastructure exceeds data rates used in most C-Band, Ku-Band and Ka-Band satellite services. The uplink multiplexing system provides an advanced Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) Conditional Access System (CAS) scrambling in addition to the broadcast industry's standard Conditional Access systems. This technology, Advanced Encryption System (AES) enables secure and reliable distribution of data and/or video services to be downlinked, and multicast to commercial and residential subscribers from one or more digital headends. GlobeCast (www.globecast.com) - a subsidiary of France Telecom - is a $400m global content management and delivery company. Via its worldwide satellite and fiber network, the company manages and transports 10 million hours of video and other rich media yearly for its core customer base of broadcasters, as well as corporate, government and retail clients. GlobeCast is network agnostic and ingests once to deliver content to any network via multiple platforms, including direct-to-home satellite, cable, video-to-mobile, IPTV/video-over-ADSL, desktop broadband, and more. It is now the world's largest provider of delivery services to live television-over-mobile operators and in 2005, it won Cable & Satellite International's Product of the Year award for Best Outside Broadcast Technology for WING Content Exchange, its IP-based file delivery platform. The company's global presence includes 15 teleports and technical operations centers throughout Europe, America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Australia. GlobeCast: New Media, Fresh Ideas |
