BTC Broadband Taps Entone for Hybrid Video Service

CUPERTINO, CA - BTC Broadband, a rural telco and FTTH provider based in Bixby, Okla., is teaming with set-top box maker Entone to explore a new broadband TV service model.

BTC Broadband will use Entone's FusionTV to offer a new TV service that combines live over-the-air television programs and full DVR capabilities with Internet-based media services. The cloud-based services include VUDU's streaming library of 50,000-plus titles and more than 50 online applications, such as photo sharing from Flickr and Picasa and social media via Facebook and Twitter.

"Our FTTH deployment is a key technological differentiator for our services," says Scott Floyd, director of sales, product development and customer services at BTC Broadband. "With a product like Entone's FusionTV, we can leverage our high-speed network to bring next-generation, broadband-centric services to market while also increasing our overall customer satisfaction with a rich and compelling TV service."

Entone's FusionTV solution is a turnkey managed platform that includes software, equipment and service. FusionTV combines traditional TV service with OTT services and is delivered as an operator-branded offering. Operators can increase the average revenue per user and strengthen subscriber satisfaction without the upfront capital investment and content-acquisition complexities of delivering a full scale IPTV system.

"Operators are realizing that broadband is the anchor platform for delivering new revenue-generating services," says Andrew Morton, vice president of broadband TV solutions at Entone. "BBTV is the proverbial win-win. It offers a path for progressive operators like BTC to potentially upsell their broadband subscribers to a premium tier and can also give BTC a way to offer a richer, operator-branded TV service for consumers who may otherwise cobble together their own suite of online video services that can neither be monetized or used to enhance the BTC brand."

FusionTV is enabled by Entone's 300 and 400 series of hybrid devices, which integrate Broadcom's advanced dual-core processor, providing a flexible platform for supporting an array of advanced video and hybrid TV applications.