Time Warner Cable announced the launch of VOD in some of its smaller markets including Clarksburg, WV; Dothan, AL; Fort Benning, GA; and Terre Haute, IN. Time Warner will be using a new Tandberg VOD solution which is aimed at markets needing 2000 VOD streams or less. The new Tandberg system allows the local distribution of VOD content married with a centralized management function. Time Warner will manage all of these small market VOD deployments from Colorado.
The expansion of VOD into smaller markets is inevitable. VOD offers a competitive advantage for terrestrial based operators like Time Warner and others over DBS. The challenge has been scaling VOD platforms down to serve the thousands of smaller markets across the country. Independent cable operators represented by the NCTC and small IPTV operators are hungry for applications like VOD Solutions like this one from Tandberg and similar solutions from C-Cor and Comcast Media Center should garner much interest from the thousands of small independent cable and telco video operators across the U.S., all of whom are looking for ways to remain competitive.