January 10, 2013 — Clear Lake, SD – Citing how they want to be moving forward in IPTV in the next few years, ITC, a South Dakota Telco serving 15,000 customers in South Dakota and Minnesota, is putting their new IPTV customers onto the Innovative Systems Middleware solution.
According to Ren Preheim, ITC’s Network Operations Manager, “We are putting our new customers on the APMAX Middleware in our current FTTH projects, and at present we are seeing fewer operational issues than we do with our legacy system.” Preheim adds, “One issue we are encountering is that some customers on our legacy middleware product are hearing about the new system and are wondering when they are going to get the upgrade.” With an initial Cap and Grow strategy, ITC will analyze Set Top Box depreciation and gradually phase other customers onto the APMAX Middleware. According to Preheim, with around 6,500 video customers, converting them all over at one time isn’t feasible.
ITC’s Outside Plant Supervisor, Terry Pederson, feels that the Innovative Middleware provides a better quality of service and more features for their customers. According to Pederson, “I was one of the first to have the APMAX Middleware in my home last spring and noticed the advantages right away. The smooth operation of the Program Guide and the DVR functionality were immediately apparent to me.” With hundreds of ITC’s subscribers on the new system, several things are standing out as improvements. According to Pederson, the most significant improvement is the ability to quickly solve common input and channel control issues from the ITC service center using the Virtual Remote feature. Pederson also commented that they seldom have to reboot STBs and that it’s a very clean “always-on” system.
