Anevia Supplies Alice With Video On Demand Solution

Anevia is to supply Alice, the French part of Telecom Italia, with its latest Video on Demand solution as it continues to build its presence and reputation across the Continent.
Anevia now supplies 80 customers in 30 countries and among its client base is Orange (France Telecom), Deutsche Telekom, Free and Sierre Energie. It won the Alice contract because of competitive pricing, easy set-up capability and the sheer flexibility of the offering.
After installation of the Anevia solution, Alice TV customers will be able to choose and watch, instantaneously, a movie or a show from a selection of 1000 titles, and carry out play, pause, stop, fast forward and rewind through their set-top box.
"We chose Anevia primarily because of its ability to give us a high level of support throughout the deployment stage, and its technical ability to further develop its products and offer leading-edge technological solutions. I am very happy with the choice we made in every respect," said Olivier Urcel, Alice's Information Systems Director.
The Anevia solution has a number of vital advantages for operators wishing to get involved in VoD:

• Continuity of service: load balancing and high availability in the event of breakdown means there is no interruption to the service
• Quality of service: the central/regional server distributed
  architecture results in optimum use of bandwidth
• Technical integration with other solution partners and adaptation to the network operator's specific requirements

The architecture implemented comprises of two Anevia products:

• Anevia 'Toucan' Servers: at the heart of the VoD solution, these servers can store and stream over IP videos from the catalogue
• Anevia 'Apalis' Servers: these servers manage Toucans by handling content distribution throughout France and ensuring redundancy protection in the event of a breakdown

"Even though it has only been in business for a few years, Anevia has managed to win over more than twenty European IPTV and VoD operators. This new success reinforces Anevia's position as an innovative player in its market," said Damien Lucas, CEO and co-founder of Anevia.
After the successful deployment of a 500-title catalogue, the installation of new Toucan servers will make it possible to increase this to 1000 titles by mid 2007 and to 4000 by the end of 2007.
Anevia is bringing its technology to the UK next month, where it has a presence at the flagship IPTV event, the IPTV World Forum (stand 113) at Olympia in London. Visitors will have the opportunity to see the Anevia solution in action for the first time.
Anevia is a telecom equipment supplier, specialising in the video element of Triple Play - Video on Demand, IPTV and digital recording.
Unlike traditional electronic solutions, the originality of Anevia's approach is in having opted for an innovative software solution in its devices, which combine broadband and television. As a result, Anevia has been able to develop VOD servers and DVB to IP streaming servers that are more compact, cheaper and quicker to deploy. Set up in 2003 by members of the team that developed the VideoLAN VLC media player, Anevia is a French company, whose main investor is CDC Enterprises Innovation.
Anevia's products have been selected by a large number of telecom, xDSL and FTTH operators, broadcasters and system integrators worldwide.
(DS)