Cisco, who recently announced the acquisition of cable set-top box maker Scientific Atlanta, lays out their IPTV strategy for eWeek. It’s not clear how or if their investment in MovieBeam plays into this. Five elements are nice, but will they leverage Scientific Atlanta’s assets into some sort of convergent Cisco-branded appliances — how about a IPTV DVR set-top box with built-in cable modem, wireless router, and VoIP functionality? I’m sure the cableco’s would love marketing that triple play device!
eWeek says: By leveraging the combined expertise of Cisco with IP, home networks with Cisco’s Linksys unit and now video, “we can deliver a better user experience with a platform to support many services to many screens,” said Paul Sanchirico, senior director of video and IP TV Network Systems Group at Cisco in San Jose, Calif.
In Cisco’s vision, there are five architectural elements required to deliver next-generation services that improve the user experience. Those include the connected home, where Cisco can now offer home gateways, routers and now set top boxes with Scientific Atlanta. The second element is the network; the third is the video head end, provided by Scientific Atlanta with satellite receivers, encoders and digital content managers. The fourth is a video control infrastructure and the fifth is Business Support Systems/Operational Support Systems. For BSS/OSS, Cisco intends to partner with systems integrators such IBM Global Services and Accenture.