LAS VEGAS -- Cisco today announced that its CDN and router technologies are underpinning the global rollout of Altice's Zive SVOD service. The announcement likely indicates Altice's plans to eventually bring Zive to the U.S. market through its purchases of Suddenlink and Cablevision.
"The first of its kind, Zive is available to SFR customers in France, with plans to soon offer it in all Altice markets. Zive can be viewed from a variety of devices and offers a broad category mix of more than 5,000 high-definition (HD) shows available, growing to 15,000 by the end of 2016. Zive includes a wide catalogue of over 400 4K/ultra HD programs spanning kids shows, movies, sports, and more," Cisco said in a release. "Altice was one of the first to deploy the Cisco cBR-8 converged broadband router, which is helping it deliver faster Internet speeds to support high-definition and 4K video-on-demand. Cisco CDN technologies are allowing for the cost-effective storage, delivery, and picture quality of the 4K video content."
Late last month, Altice announced its U.S. management team in the wake of the regulatory closure of its $9.1 billion purchase of Suddenlink Communications. As Netherlands-based Altice takes over operations of St. Louis-based Suddenlink and its nearly 1.5 million customers across 17 states, Altice CEO Dexter Goei will assume the chairman position for the newly christened Altice USA. Meanwhile, outgoing Suddenlink CEO Jerry Kent announced that his top managers will transition with him to data center operator TierPoint, where Kent will take over as CEO.
Altice is still working to obtain regulatory approval for its other major U.S. play, the $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision (NYSE: CVC). That deal is expected to close in the coming months.
The Altice Group is a multinational cable and telecom company with over 13 million customers spanning Israel, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Portugal, French West Indies, the Dominican Republic and now the United States.
Cisco's announcement with Altice today here at the CES event was one of many the company issued touting its progress in the global cable market. Cisco also announced KBRO, Taiwan's largest cable television provider, is deploying the Cisco cBR-8 Evolved Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) to deliver faster Internet connections. Separately, Cisco said Shaw Communications in Canada is using Cisco's new Open Media Distribution solution to simplify the content delivery network operations for its new FreeRange TV service. Cisco also said it is working with Sky in Europe on the operator's new Sky Q home TV entertainment system; Cisco said it is securing that service with its VideoGuard Everywhere (VGE) video service protection solution.
Finally, Cisco said its Virtualized Video Processing (V2P) now features two new technologies: the Open Media Distribution, which Cisco said is a cloud-ready CDN platform for delivering multiscreen video experiences to managed and unmanaged devices; and the Cloud Object Storage, which Cisco said is a software-based storage solution designed to support the storage needs for video services such as cloud DVR and time-shift TV.
In other Cisco news, The Register reported that Cisco has invested in infrastructure software startup Springpath in order to resell that company's products to Cisco's customers.
Although Cisco recently closed the $600 million sale of its cable set-top box business to France's Technicolor, the company remains a major supplier of network and processing technologies to the nation's largest cable operators.
For more:
- see this Register article
- see these five Cisco releases
Related articles:
Altice's Cablevision deal encounters surprise regulatory hurdles in New York
Altice purchase of Suddenlink approved by the FCC