Residential gateway announcements - Technicolor, Motorola, Broadcom, Marvell, and Jungo

Here are several residential gateway-related news releases in the past week or so:

• Technicolor will provide its TG587nv2 to O2 UK Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Telefónica;
• Motorola's 7600 Series of ultra-broadband VDSL2 gateways will be deployed by Swisscom to provide high definition (HD) video, high-speed data and voice-over-IP (VoIP) to its subscribers.;
• Broadcom announced the availability of its BCM6818 Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON)-based residential gateway system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution. Broadcom notes that this SoC represents one of the first and most complete hardware and software solutions currently available for enabling advanced GPON-based residential gateway services that include Wi-Fi, voice over IP (VoIP), Ethernet switching and IPTV.
• Marvell and Jungo announced the integration Jungo's OpenRG™ residential gateway software and Marvell's AVANTA™ Application Gateway - on-a-Chip (GoC). With the new residential gateway reference platform, service providers and network operators will have easier access to always-on home services and value-added applications while increasing average revenue per user.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Cable Europe Parties Like its 1999

Remember the lavish, luxurious corporate functions frequently hosted by technology companies in the roaring 90’s? Tonight the European cable industry celebrated a solid year of nearly 10% growth (at least Telenet enjoyed nearly 10% growth) in an otherwise lackluster economy. The party, hosted by Telenet for delegates of the European Cable Congress in Brussels, felt more like a coming out party. The IT industry’s fascination with IPTV has finally quieted as IPTV growth has slowed over the past year and cable, evidently, has decided it is time to come out and celebrate. Perhaps the byline of the event should have been “the demise of the cable industry in Europe has been greatly exaggerated.” Telenet spared no expense, renting out the Belgian Bourse, an elegant Palladian style building – quite possibly symbolic of the solid returns the company is providing its shareholders. In cocktail conversation, a member of the Cable Europe trade association stated that ICT has become one of the most significant contributors to the EUs GDP. That would explain the guest appearance of Belgium’s Prime Minister, Yves Leterme.

The distinguished guests at the event included one of the FCC’s lead economists working on the U.S. Broadband Plan which will be presented to Congress this month. Other notables were the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) team, the sales team of the steadily growing digital rights company Irdeto, some familiar faces from OpenTV, Broadcom, management of Liberty Global and subsidiary UPC as well as the majority of European cable providers.

To further celebrate not only cable-pride but also Belgian-pride, Telenet served not only the gamut of Belgian champagnes and beers, but trotted out cuisine from two of the country’s most famous chefs, top chocolatier, and award winning latte artist (he creates images in the milk floating atop your espresso). Later in the evening the party featured fashion models sporting outfits from Belgium’s top clothing designers, and finally the pulsating sounds of Belgium’s top DJ.

When IPTV World Forum opens in London on the 23^rd of this month, will we see the industry hosting such a bold celebration of success?

Sigma buys CopperGate - going head-to-head with Broadcom?

Sigma Designs is building quite a home networking portfolio. First, there was the acquisition of Zensys, and now today an announcement of their purchase of CopperGate, they look like they're going to go head-to-head even more with the likes of Broadcom in the advanced gateway, set-top box, and connected CE space, as Broadcom is a big proponent of MoCA.

Adobe working with chipset developers to bring Flash to the TV

Adobe made a couple of interesting announcements last week relative to making Flash available on the TV.

On January 5, Adobe and Intel announced plans to collaborate on the development to port and optimize Adobe® Flash® technology for the Intel® Media Processor CE 3100. This effort is expected to provide consumers with richer and more seamless Web-based and video viewing experiences through advanced Intel-based cable set-top boxes, Blu-ray Disc players, digital TVs and retail connected AV devices.

On January 6, Adobe announced that the Adobe® Flash® Platform was integrated into Broadcom’s latest digital television (DTV) and set-top box (STB) system-on-a-chip (SoC) platforms.