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ANT, a Cambridge, UK-based developer of embedded browser, content-control and user interface software for IPTV, announced earlier this month that Telecom Italia has chosen its complete IPTV set-top box software solution for the deployment of its Alice Home TV service, which launched in four Italian cities–Rome, Milan, Bologna and Palermo–earlier this month (see [itvt] Issue 6.44 Part 2). The company says that, in partnership with set-top box manufacturer, Telsey, systems integrator, Accenture, and middleware provider,  Alcatel, it is providing Telecom Italia with a complete, certified IPTV software solution that combines Alcatel’s Open Media Client software with ANT’s proprietary software. Its deal with Telecom Italia will also see ANT receiving revenue from the provision of "architectural consultancy services in support of the success of the deployment," the company says.

Last July, Telecom Italia issued a press release in which it announced that it had begun free trials of its IPTV service in the four cities where the service has now launched, and in which it stated that its technology partners for the trials were Alcatel (which it said was providing "ADSL access devices and its ‘Open Media Suite’ set-top box video entertainment TV distribution platform"), Pirelli (which it said was providing "intelligent modular routers"), and Microsoft (which it said was providing its IPTV Edition software, in order to enable it to "test and offer a new generation of for-payment video services and content"). [itvt] asked Microsoft TV’s director of marketing, Ed Graczyk, whether the ANT announcement meant that Telecom Italia had decided against using Microsoft’s IPTV platform: "They’re still part of our trial program," he said "Out of nine customers that we’ve announced, we’ve now converted five to commercial agreements and four are still in the trial program phase and haven’t yet made the step to commercial agreements, including Telecom Italia. But our commercial agreement customers include BT, SBC/AT&T, Deutsche Telecom, and Verizon. They’ve gone beyond the trial and signed an agreement to commercially launch with our software. We also still have Bell Canada, BellSouth and Reliance in the trial program, and we’re optimistic that they’ll ultimately want to launch with our software–but that’s the stage we are at with them. A lot of these customers are testing multiple solutions, as well…BT, for example, was pretty far down the road with a competitive solution, but ultimately chose us. And frankly, even customers that have committed to our platform–or someone else’s–will continue to test new technologies as they come out. We expect that. We like that. It makes for a good, healthy, competitive market, so it’s a good business practice…An announcement that Telecom Italia made a few months ago talked about their IPTV plans and how they were working with us and working with Alcatel and working with Pirelli…Just because they might have a trial using some other technologies that are not ours, doesn’t mean that they’re not also testing ours or that we still don’t have a great shot at a big commercial agreement."

[itvt] also contacted Telecom Italia for comment. A spokesperson emailed us the section of the July press release in which the company stated that the technology partners for its IPTV trial were Microsoft, Alcatel and Pirelli, and told us that "for the moment, this is what I can give you." (Note: a representative of ANT told us that he could not comment for this article on the record.)

For more [itvt] IPTV Research, go to: http://www.itvt.com/research.html

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