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Comcast Media Center's HITS a business unit announced a national terrestrial fiber distribution service for delivering video programming to cable operators, using Comcast nationwide fiber network that spans more than 147,000 route miles.
The CMC said it can help MSOs develop a fiber strategy now that will be available by the fourth quarter of 2010. Once an MSO has a local fiber system established, it can connect to the HITS fiber-based solution either directly or through a last mile provider.
The HITS fiber-based distribution service can be used either for the primary delivery of video content or serve as a backup path for satellite-delivered programming in the event of satellite interruptions.
"The new HITS fiber-based solution represents the evolution of transport technology in the cable business today," CMC chief operating officer Gary Traver said in a statement. "Fiber delivery has the bandwidth and resiliency to deliver the large number of video services and encoding formats that can help MSOs compete in today's environment. "
The new fiber-based service uses conditional access from Verimatrix and Harmonic's video-processing and delivery equipment. According to the CMC, more than two-thirds of cable operators it polled recently said they plan to centralize services and headends together via fiber.
HITS services include delivery of more than 280 digital linear channels, video-on-demand, conditional access and interactive services.
