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Cable Technology Feature Article

March 05, 2013

Mtel Leverages ZTE's IPTV Solution to Provide Ubiquitous TV Viewing in Bulgaria

By Jayashree Adkoli, TMCnet Contributor


A recent report by MarketResearch.com, titled “Global IPTV (News - Alert) Market Forecast to 2014,” indicated that Europe is currently the largest and most active IPTV market, as the broadband penetration and the numbers of IPTV subscribers in the region have increased exponentially.

Multimedia Research Group (News - Alert) (MRG)'s semiannual report "IPTV Global Forecast – 2009 to 2013" also indicates the number of global IPTV subscribers is expected to grow from 28 million in 2009 to 83 million in 2013 with the global IPTV market revenue forecasted to grow up to US$38 billion in 2013.

Cashing in on this trend, Mobitel (News - Alert) (Mtel) – a mobile operator in Bulgaria and a wholly owned subsidiary of Telekom Austria (News - Alert) Group (TAG) – has been leveraging ZTE Corporation’s IPTV solution to provide consumers in Bulgaria with  an ubiquitous television viewing experience on TVs, PCs, tablets and phones.

ZTE (News - Alert) is a provider of telecommunications equipment, network solutions and mobile devices. Its IPTV system has been put into commercial use in many markets in Asia, the USA and Europe. Last year, it solely constructed the biggest H.264 IPTV network in the world with over four million online users. Currently, it provides the ideal IPTV integrated video communication platform with a highly customizable solution.

Earlier in September 2011, Mtel jointly constructed an IPTV pilot with ZTE. It also signed a five-year cooperation agreement in December of the same year for ZTE to provide customized end-to-end solutions for IPTV middleware, digital rights management (DRM), a content delivery network (CDN) and set top boxes. The scale of the network was expanded over several phases.

Mtel's IPTV platform, which is powered by ZTE technology, is now in commercial use. This IPTV platform is providing multiscreen television services to TVs, PCs, tablets and mobile phones across Bulgaria.

Apart from offering superior interactive video experience to users over fixed or mobile broadband connections, this multi-screen integrated IPTV service also facilitates subscribers to watch videos anytime and anywhere such as in the study, in the office or on the way to work, not just in the front of the TV, thereby offering greater value to Bulgarian broadband subscribers.

According to Mtel, users can access the network through a range of terminals to enjoy live TV, video-on-demand, reserved recorded video, OTT applications and other new IPTV/OTT services. With the help of ZTE, the company can provide 'any multimedia service at anytime, over any network to any terminal.’

"Mtel is a major operator in its region and this is a critical network for ZTE," said Chen Xinyu, GM of VAS product line at ZTE, in a statement. "Constructing the IPTV multi-screen integration platform to provide Mtel's users with abundant innovative services is a litmus test for ZTE with regard to product quality, innovation capability and project delivery.”

Xinyu added, “We believe that the successful commercial use of the multi-screen service will further consolidate the cooperation between ZTE and Mtel in the multimedia field, and we look forward to the opportunity to provide IPTV/OTT multimedia services for Mtel's fixed and 4G network to help them improve their user experience and create more value for the company."

In recent news, Amdocs - a provider of customer experience systems and services – signed a five-year managed services contract with Mtel for various managed services.




Edited by Brooke Neuman


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