Tele Columbus, the German MSO with about 3.6 million cable-connected homes, has introduced “advanceTV,” a multiscreen pay TV offering that will integrate over-the-top video, support 4K video and rely on RDK-based boxes from Humax with Espial’s ‘G4” client.

Espial, which is also baking in its cloud-based Media Services Platform, also served as the master system integrator for the platform, which is also powered by products from Cisco Systems, Verimatrix, and Elemental Technologies (now part of Amazon Web Services).

Update: Also tied to the advanceTV project is Metrological, which is helping to deliver several apps at launch, including Vimeo, Flickr, DailyMotion, Google Maps, wetter.com, Wikipedia, Deezer, TuneIn, and Deutsche Welle, among others. 

RELATED: Tele Columbus Takes RDK Route to Next-Gen Video

advanceTV, a service that will become available in January 2017, will be integrated with maxdome, one of Germany’s top SVOD-OTT services, and tie in Web apps. The service’s new UI provides integrated access across the MSO’s live TV and VOD services, DVR recordings, and maxdome library.

Tele Columbus, which acquired PrimaCom last year, introduced the new offering Monday (Dec. 5) at a media event in Berlin.

Tele Columbus’s plan is to migrate to the new platform by making advanceTV available to all new customers and introduce campaigns aimed at upgrading legacy video subs to the new platform.

Tele Columbus is also the third European MSO in Europe to implement the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the preintegrated software platform for video and broadband gateways being managed by Comcast, Liberty Global and Charter Communications (via its acquisition of Time Warner Cable).  In Europe, Liberty Global is also deploying RDK, as is NOS of Portugal, which is also working with Espial. Tele Columbus’s rollout will include full unicast support of DVB-C

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Tele Columbus, a German cable operator with about 2.8 million subs, work with Espial on a next-gen, IP-powered video platform that will lean on the Reference Design Kit (RDK), a preintegated software stack for IP-capable devices that’s being managed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global.

Under the deal, Tele Columbus will license Espial’s G4 set-top client and Media Services Platform (MSP) backoffice, and tap Espial to integrate the MSO’s next-gen IP video platform. Espial’s role on the set-top box (Tele Columbus has not announced its STB suppliers for the project) will include the resulting platform’s user interface, according to Jeff Huppertz, Espial’s vice president of marketing and business development.

Tele Columbus, which grew in size when it acquired PrimaCom Holding earlier this year, is expected to start trials on the new platform later this year, and follow with full deployments sometime in early 2016.

Huppertz said Tele Columbus’s approach follows a trend/new model in which the operator separates the hardware from the software and develops UIs using a third-party design partner. He said Espial’s platform, which uses HTML5, will position Tele Columbus to provide an advanced platform on set-tops as well as mobile devices.

Ottawa-based Espial introduced G4 in May. It’s a fourth-gen set-top client can be applied not just to cable operators, but to telcos, satellite TV providers and other type of operators looking to provide a unified offering that blends on-demand, linear and OTT content. At the time, Espial said three operators, including one “major” MSO in North America and two in Western Europe, had selected G4 for their next-gen video platform. Those three operators have about 8 million subs between them.

The Espial G4 STB Client, Espial Media Service Platform and the Espial Experience professional services team were selected based on their industry leading software and expertise in RDK and user experience,” Ronny Verhelst, CEO of  Tele Columbus, said in a statement.

Tuesday’s announcement is Tele Columbus’s first public acknowledgement that it will use the RDK for its next-gen platform, and is an example of the platform’s progress outside the U.S.

RDK Development LLC has more than 25 MVPD licensees around the world. In addition to Tele Columbus, known MVPD licensees include Comcast, TWC, Liberty  Global, CenturyLink, Charter Communications, Rogers Communications, Kabel Deutschland, and Japan’s J:COM.

DOCSIS 3.1 is poised to usher in cable’s multi-gigabit broadband era later this year, but operators around the world continue to push the envelope with current-gen DOCSIS 3.0 technologies.

Tele Columbus, the third-largest cable operator in Germany, said it will use DOCSIS 3.0 (via its hybrid fiber/coax plant and fiber-to-the-business network) to launch a 400 Mbps (downstream) service on April 1, initially targeting customers in Potsdam, where it connects to about 40,000 homes.

Tele Columbus, which also just set an IPO price range of  €8 to €12 per share that could raise €495 million (US$583.6 million) to be used toward growth purposes, said it will announce pricing closer to the launch, and is setting plans to extend access to the 400-meg product to other markets.

Broadband TV News notes that Tele Columbus’s current top-end tier offers 150 Mbps. In Europe, Com Hem set the bar using DOCSIS 3.1 last year with the debut of a 500 Mbps tier that’s paired with an upstream that maxes out at 50 Mbps.

Further out, expect cable operators to target speeds of 1 Gbps or more over HFC as technology for DOCSIS 3.1 becomes available. Notably, Broadcom introduced a D3.1 reference design last week, and STMicroelectronics showed off D3.1 demos at last week’s International CES in Las Vegas.