BRAZIL, SAO PAULO, JULY 14, 2011 – NET, the largest cable multi-service provider in Latin America, has selected the Cisco® Content Delivery System (CDS) for a new video on demand (VoD) service, named NOW. The solution enables NET's customers to choose high quality video content at a time they prefer to watch it, as if they had a home video store. Cisco is also managing the system integration for NET.
NOW service was released in April, initially for customers of NET HD and NET HD Max services in some regions of the city of Sao Paulo. The service is extending to Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Campinas and Belo Horizonte. The implementation will be gradual, and it is expected that the service will be available to all HD customers of these cities by the end of the year. Initially, there will be over 2000 titles, including paid content (mostly movies) and free (content broadcasting by the channels that are part of the customer package).
"With NOW, NET will transmit thousands of custom channels. It is a channel for customers to watch what they want, when they want", said Marcio Carvalho, director of products and services for NET.
"By choosing to watch content from NOW, our customers will have an exclusive broadcast, totally independent of the normal cable TV or broadband services they already had. This is only possible due to NET's high-capacity fiber optic network. This technology differentiation enables NET to be a pioneer and innovator of various services in Brazil, including high-definition, 3D, ultra broadband and now the delivery of programming in a custom, on-demand way - to watch it when you want."
NET will benefit from the Cisco CDS flexibility and scale capabilities to meet the quality and efficiency requirements of VoD delivery.Its distributed architecture offers a highly scalable and decentralized design that minimizes the impact on the IP network infrastructure, allowing for the most watched content to be always available in NET's main distribution centers.
Cisco CDS consists of networked distribution servers, or Content Delivery Engines, which are grouped to work as a single logical system. Additional engines can be easily attached, allowing for NET's infrastructure to accommodate virtually unlimited video storage and streaming capacity.
In addition, each Cisco CDS server can be optimized for one or more tasks, such as content insertion, central storage, smart decentralized storage and distribution based on SSD (Solid-State Drive) technology.
"Cisco CDS sets a completely new standard for the delivery of advanced video services, offering a much more economical, and flexible solution", said Marcelo Ehalt, manager Systems Engineering Sales for Cisco in Brazil. "New services such as VoD can be deployed without compromising consumers' quality of experience, while meeting service providers' bandwidth and storage requirements".
Set-top box manufactured in Brazil
Besides providing the infrastructure for NET new service, this year Cisco has begun the Set-top box production in Brazil for the operator. The initial deployment plan includes the Cisco 4682DVB HD Digital Interactive Media Server, which has been configured to deliver NET's complete set of video services, including the new NOW service, HDTV, 3DTV, electronic programming guides and interactive games. The USB 2.0 port within the set-top box also enables connectivity toperipheral consumer electronic devices, creating new ways for consumers to expand their enjoyment of photos and MP3 audio. Future enhancements include digital video recording capabilities.
About NET Serviços
NET Serviços is the largest cable multi-service company in Latin America. Present in 99 cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Florianopolis, Manaus, Brasilia and Goiania, offers broadband Internet, fixed telephony and cable TV, a truly convergent, through a single cable. In all cities where it operates, NET is the leading choice of competition in fixed telephony and broadband, offering profitable and equality prices.
About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. For information about Cisco, please visit http://www.cisco.com. For news, visit http://newsroom.cisco.com. Cisco equipment in emerging markets is supplied by Cisco Systems International BV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc.
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