SBC picked Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta to provide set-top box...
SBC picked Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta to provide set-top boxes for its Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) launch, set for later this year or early next. That “controlled market entry” will precede a wider launch mid-2006, SBC said. It said the…
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contracts, lasting through 2008, will provide “equal opportunity to both vendors.” The set- tops, which will use Microsoft IPTV Edition software, will give customers access to features that include VoD as part of SBC’s Project Lightspeed. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Motorola, which has sold wireless handsets and telecom infrastructure gear to SBC, views the order as “an expansion of a relationship that has been going on for a number of years,” Dan Moloney, pres. of its Connected Home Solutions unit, told us. Verizon’s pay-TV launch, which Motorola also is working on, is on schedule for a Sept. or Oct. introduction, he said: “Things are progressing very well.” The deal may boost demand for Scientific-Atlanta products, because “this really creates a new market,” CTO Bob McIntyre told us in a separate interview. But the company is unlikely to have order “visibility” until the 2nd or 3rd quarter of the year. He said SBC is “going to go at a measured pace, and they know it’s going to be hard with the system integration.”