SAN JOSE, Calif., and LISBON, Portugal, December 8, 2008 - Cisco announced today that Sonaecom, SGPS S.A., Portugal's leading provider in telecommunications, broadband, media, and software and systems information, has selected Cisco® Visual Quality Experience (VQE) technology for its Clix SmarTV Internet Protocol television (iptv) service. Sonaecom currently offers IPTV services to subscribers across Portugal via an ADSL network and plans to reach 1 million homes via an optical fiber-to-the-home network by 2010.
Service providers are working to evolve their network into a medianet. A medianet represents an advanced, intelligent network optimized for video and rich media communications. It enables service providers to consistently deliver the best- quality video possible. With medianet technologies, Sonaecom can optimize the scalability, performance and user experience of rich media, especially video.
"Cisco has been a longtime partner of Sonaecom, and its advanced VQE technology will enable us to deliver a best-in-class IPTV service, reach a larger market and ultimately grow our revenue base," said José Pinto Correia, Sonaecom's chief technology officer. "Our video quality will improve dramatically over the entire video network."
In addition to using Cisco's Carrier Ethernet solutions, Sonaecom is taking advantage of Cisco VQE error-repair and monitoring technologies to detect and repair packet loss, thereby significantly improving video quality.
By anticipating and diagnosing problems that threaten successful IPTV service delivery and implementing error repair via the network, Sonaecom can potentially increase service acceptance.
The deployment of Cisco VQE standards-based technology will allow Sonaecom's network to support new features, including rapid channel change. Rapid channel change reduces channel-change times from several seconds to less than one second, a key advantage as service providers like Sonaecom expand their IPTV offerings and provide more content and programming choices for consumers.
"In this highly competitive market, service providers need to exceed consumer expectations for video quality in order to retain market share and grow their subscriber base," said Kip Compton, general manager of Cisco's Video and Content Platforms business unit. "Our Visual Quality Experience technology plays a key role in giving service providers such as Sonaecom a competitive advantage over analog, traditional digital cable, and digital satellite services, by enhancing the reliability and robustness of the video delivery network."
Cisco VQE is part of the Cisco Content Delivery System (CDS), a highly extensible platform that helps service providers offer a variety of services to subscribers, including video on demand, time-shifted television, ad insertion, streaming-intensive Web services, user-generated content and next-generation content delivery network services.
About Sonaecom
Sonaecom is the Sonae Group sub-holding for the Telecommunications, Media and Software and Systems Information (SSI) areas, playing an active role in the integrated management of the corresponding business units, identifying and exploiting existing synergies and company growth potential. Sonaecom is an entrepreneurial growth company whose ambition is to be the best Portuguese communication services provider and the company of choice for exceptional people to work and discover their full potential. Sonaecom relentlessly pursues the creation of innovative products, services and solutions that fulfil the needs of its markets and generate superior economic value. For more information, visit www.sonae.com.
