Avail-TVN, a large digital media services company in North America, has announced Toner Cable Equipment, Inc. as its newest ecosystem partner. Toner Cable, a manufacturer and distributor of cable television equipment, is launching a low-cost MPEG-4 linear transport solution, powered by Avail-TVN, which enables cable operators to make better use of existing bandwidth.

"As an Avail-TVN solution partner, Toner Cable is able to offer a turnkey SD-HD digital MPEG-4 solution," said BJ Toner, president, Toner Cable Equipment. "The Toner Digital Addressable Solution helps operators regain control of their systems and stop the bleeding of subscribers to competitive television entertainment system providers."

Cable operators who work with Toner Cable Equipment now have a cost effective way to deliver more content and services to their subscribers, including more than 200 SD and HD channels, conditional access, Video on Demand and Pay-Per-View programming.

"Cable operators are facing a bandwidth crisis as libraries get deeper, HD content continues to grow and new content technologies, such as 3D begin to emerge," said Jim Riley, chief revenue officer, Avail-TVN. "Toner and Avail-TVN are able to offer an economically viable MPEG-4 solution that removes the costly barrier of plant upgrades, allowing operators to offer the rich content that their customers are looking for."

By moving to MPEG-4, cable operators can make better use of existing bandwidth, deliver a better television viewing experience with more HD programming and position themselves to be ready for bandwidth-intensive future services such as 3D-TV. Toner Digital Equipment is offering its cable operator customers the opportunity to make a seamless transition to MPEG-4 by providing full range of SD/HD/MPEG-2/MPEG-4 set-top boxes.

Avail-TVN provides the managed services to help cable operator’s transition to next-generation video delivery without the need to invest in physical plant upgrades or interrupt their signal, and then delivers the MPEG-4 encoded content that subscribers want.

In related news, Avail-TVN announced NewWave Communications, a multi-system cable company, will sign on for its full suite of services including core offerings MPEG-4 linear television transmission services, Pay-Per-View or PPV channels and video on demand VOD.