Access Communications Co-operative Ltd., which is a Canadian triple-play cable operator based in Regina with more than 125,000 homes passed in 230 communities throughout Saskatchewan, will deploy Adara’s Switched IP Video (SIPV) solution to free up bandwidth and enable the expansion of its DOCSIS internet services.
“We currently operate both DAC and HITS-QT platforms with Motorola set-tops for video, and like most other operators, our RF spectrum is full, leaving limited room to expand our DOCSIS internet services,” Craig Van Ham, VP Technology at Access, says. “We’re looking forward to providing our customers with faster broadband speeds by taking advantage of the newly freed-up bandwidth.”
Adara reports that its SIPV solution delivers video more efficiently by “switching” the programs into network service groups only when they are requested, rather than using the practice of broadcasting all channels, to all set-top boxes, all the time. “The benefit is that SIPV can free up to 80 percent or more of an operator’s video bandwidth in as little as 90 days so that it can be immediately used for DOCSIS 3.0, 3.1, or Full Duplex expansion to multi-gigabit,” the company says in a statement.
Stan Koukarine, Adara CTO and co-founder, says that the core elements of SIPV are “widely deployed, proven, and extremely reliable, which also means that SIPV works with legacy QAM set-tops and gateways.”
“In fact, with switched, the overall customer experience is not only better and more reliable than broadcasting, but the super-efficient delivery mechanism enables an unlimited channel line-up offering and a low-cost, success-based introduction of Ultra-HD/4K, as well,” Koukarine continues.
Access’ Van Ham explains that Adara’s SIPV solution will allow the company to connect many of its current HITS-QT+ communities directly to its DAC network and video sources in Regina, which allows more state-of-the-art video services to these towns. “This will allow us to eliminate dozens of headends,” Van Ham adds.