Minerva has kicked out the old Myrio IPTV software at US telco Pioneer Telephone, and installed its iTVManager there. The remnants of Myrio has long been part of Nokia Siemens Networks and the company only really continues to sustain it customers in Europe (though it had a new deal in Alaska this week), where tier 1 telcos KPN and Belgacom still use it. Minerva has been chivvying each of the early Myrio customer in the US looking to replace them.
Pioneer was talked up as the fourth largest telephone cooperative in the US in the Minerva press release, and most of its business is in Oklahoma and Southern Kansas where it says it has 140,000 customers. However it has had a triple play since 2005 and was one of the early US pioneers (with a small p) in IPTV.
The old system used Myrio TotalManage middleware, a Tut Systems head end (a company since acquired by Motorola’s Home Networks division), used Calix ADSL2+ ISAMs and Amino set tops, and Verimatrix conditional access. Presumably these are all still in play as we are fairly sure the new Minerva software can integrate with all of them and last year we saw new orders for Amino at Pioneer.
Pioneer was also the first US company to use Ruckus Wireless wi-fi based video distribution around the home.
The upgrade to Minerva has already been completed and is clearly an upgrade to HD. It includes whole home DVR, and VOD and the new Minerva platform features a Widget Engine which allows the service to talk to over the top services over the open internet such as RSS news feeds, stocks, weather and traffic information, and social networking services. The new system also has to support Caller ID display on their TV screens.
‘We are leveraging Minerva’s platform to deliver next-generation television services to our subscribers,’ explains Scott Ulsaker, Manager of Pioneer Long Distance, Broadband and Video Services at Pioneer Telephone. ‘Minerva iTVManager provides the rich feature set, reliability and flexibility we need in order to offer a differentiated product.’
‘Minerva is very pleased to be a close partner of one of the largest and most progressive telephone cooperatives in the United States,’ stated Mauro Bonomi, CEO of Minerva Networks. ‘Pioneer is enjoying strong customer traction for its triple-play offering. We look forward to working closely with them as they scale their television services.’