The First Czech Hybrid Cable Solution

The first hybrid cable network in the Czech Republic will enable people with a classical “cable” television to use the most modern television services such as video on demand or recording a program. This unique solution will be tested by the inhabitants of the Prague housing estate Šeberov already in July.

Prague, 10th June, 2009 – With the constantly growing possibilities and quality of IP television, the demand for it also grows significantly. It is, however, not available to everybody yet, the limit is mainly modern infrastructure of service providers, which is missing in several areas. In the Czech Republic they managed for the first time to introduce a solution making digital television more accessible to people – through a hybrid of a classical cable (DVB/C) and IP network.

“Cable network has not half used up its potential. This hybrid solution shows an efficient way how to apply multimedia and interactive services, connected mainly with digital television, exactly in the cable network. This concerns mainly the Video on Demand (VoD) service”, brings closer the significance of the solution Antonín Král, representative of nangu.TV – producer of the media platform that secures this solution.

“The first DVB/C – IP network in the Czech Republic can be tested by the inhabitants of the housing estate Prague-Šeberov already from 1st July, 2009”, says Martin Havrda from the Planet A company, which has recently performed acquisition of cable television providers in this location. “Our company primarily profiles as an optical operator. Therefore it is very important that in cooperation with nangu. TV we managed to find an original form how to bring a modern function also to customers in this location without FTTx connection", added Martin Havrda.

“We see a big perspective in adding IP transport for cable operators as it is a way how to keep pace with the demand of customers for new and interesting services. Apart from VoD, they are mainly interactive applications based on a web browser, network video recorder (nPVR) and so on", explains further advantages of the hybrid solution Michal Kožíšek, Technical Director of the Alef Nula company, a partner of nangu.TV. Owing to the functionality of intelligent filling of the buffer memory, moreover for transmission of IP packets in the CATV network the technology DOCSIS 2.0 can be used, which otherwise would not enable to guarantee parameters of service quality.