Acorn wins turnkey TV-over-copper deal

Acorn is to provide the set-top box hardware for a broadcast TV over phone wire system being sold by Canadian software company ImagicTV. Imagic is an affiliate of Newbridge Networks and the New Brunswick Telephone Company, and specialises in the development of technology that allows service providers to deliver digital broadcast TV over copper via IP networks. Acorn is to deliver 10,000 of its acTiVe DVRD (Digital Video Receiving Devices) typographical abomination set-top boxes over the next nine months, and these will be deployed as part of an integrated solution sold by ImagicTV. The technologies used are IP multicasting, ATM, MPEG video and DSL, allowing telcos to provide digital TV and Internet access across copper wire. No customers for the ImagicTV system have as yet been announced, but the company proposes it as a 'killer app' for broadband in the telecommunications business, and if this is true Acorn should be on the threshold of large-scale sales. ®