German set-top vendor ABOX42 has announced a distribution agreement with CTIconnect, a telecom distributor serving the North America regional telecom market. CTIconnect will distribute ABOX42's M30 and M35 smart home-enabled set-top boxes supporting 4K/UltraHD, H.265 encoding, 802.11ac WiFi, and content security from Verimatrix.
"The competitive landscape for broadband providers is changing in North America, where IPTV solutions are no longer the preferred domain of tier 1 providers. Many of our customers are looking for a carrier-grade, cost-effective STB to launch their own IPTV service and propose a true triple-play offering that rivals those of much larger providers," said Daniel White, managing director of operations for CTIconnect. "We have been impressed with the superior engineering of the ABOX42 platform, which is available at an attractive price-to-performance ratio, and look forward to showcasing it to our customers."
The ABOX42 solution consists of hardware, a cross-platform stack, compatibility with TV middleware solutions, and an SDK supporting IPTV features for live TV, video on demand (VOD), catch-up TV, local and cloud PVR. The set-tops also include security software and lifecycle management capabilities.
"We thoroughly assessed all of the potential partners in North America, and discovered that CTIconnect offers the most experience in working with operators and ISPs, along with the same ambition we have to disrupt the North American IPTV market," said Oliver Soellner, member of the board at ABOX42. "ABOX42's compatibility with modern TV solutions, our extensive product experience over the last eight years, and compelling package for operators helps us stand out, helping operators enter the next-generation TV environment with low barriers."