TWC adds music, games from Synacor to Road Runner service 
By Mike Robuck

Most of Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner subscribers will be able to tap into a premium service bundle, thanks to a deal with Synacor.

The premium online services include Variety Pack, Road Runner Music and Road Runner Music to Go. Variety Packs give Road Runner users access to content from American Greetings, MLB.com, The Weather Channel, Encyclopedia Britannica and Shockwave.com for $7.95 a month.

The Road Runner Music offering has unlimited access to two million songs, and ad-free radio and music videos for $9.95 a month, while Road Runner Music to Go puts Road Runner Music on up to three mobile devices for an extra $5 a month.

“Variety Pack, Road Runner Music, and Road Runner Music to Go each provide a great value for Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner customers,” said Steve Cook, Group Vice President of High Speed Online and Road Runner for Time Warner Cable, in a prepared statement... “And with cable billing, support, and single sign-on, subscribing to these services is especially convenient for Time Warner Cable customers.”

Synacor has integrated its proprietary single sign-on technology into the service, which means TWC customers have to log on just once to their home pages to gain access to the premium Internet content.

Cablemás picks Allot’s service optimization solution
By Mike Robuck

Cablemás has teamed up with Allot Communications to use Allot’s service optimization solution to manage its network traffic and improve quality of service to its subscribers.

Cablemás, which is the second-largest cable TV operator in Mexico, will use Allot’s NetEnforcer AC-2520 to deliver 5 Gbps throughput devices that rely on deep packet inspection technology and QoS enforcement capabilities to provide customers with a better quality of experience. With Allot’s solution, Cablemás will be able to come up with policies that allocate bandwidth on a per-application basis.

“Due to a substantial and ongoing increase in bandwidth consumption, we needed to manage our traffic more efficiently, and eliminate or ‘shear’ excessive and harmful traffic, without reducing our Quality of Service,” said Arnoldo Meiselmann, COO for Cablemás, in a prepared statement. “By managing our bandwidth with NetEnforcer, we are able to optimize the utilization of existing resources and produce considerable savings.”

Gemstar-TV Guide signs deal with Decisionmark
By Mike Robuck

Gemstar-TV Guide announced today that it has signed a patent license agreement with Decisionmark for the latter’s TitanTV Web site.

The multi-year agreement includes patent license rights for Decisionmark in support of interactive program guides (IPGs) offered on TitanTV.com and for IPGs provided by them to various television broadcasters for their online Web sites. TitanTV is an online television search site for TV programming. Financial terms of the agreement were not available.

On July 9, Gemstar-TV Guide’s board said it would explore strategic alternatives, which could include a sale of the company’s assets.

Cedar Point adds alert capabilities to VoIP system
By Brian Santo

Cedar Point Communications has developed an emergency alert system for campus and university environments that allows system administrators to provide customized warnings on a location-by-location basis.

The Campus Emergency Notification Solution (CENS) uses the capabilities of Cedar Point’s Safari C³ Multimedia Switching System, allowing a coordinated response to emergency situations.

“Tragedies like the Virginia Tech incident earlier this year have demonstrated the need for security personnel to be able to communicate instantaneously and constructively with the campus at large,” said George Kassas, founder and executive vice president, business development for Cedar Point Communications. “While systems have been developed for broadcast messaging to computers and personal communication devices, we believe that we can increase security to even higher levels by transmitting individual messages to fixed devices throughout the campus as well.

Broadband Briefs for 7/25/07
By CED staff

* Voice-activated diagnostics for OpenCable Platform STBs
SpeechCycle, which specializes in voice self-service solutions for cable and telecommunication providers, said its LevelOne Video Automated Agent now provides troubleshooting and corrective action for callers with OpenCable Platform-certified set-top boxes, incuding those from Scientific Atlanta and Samsung. 

If the LevelOne Video Agent cannnot resolve a call, it will send details to a contact center agent’s desktop. Agents receive information on the desktop such as the make and model of an OpenCable Platform-based device with a record of the diagnostic steps taken.

* Avaya shipping more VoIP than ever 
The revenue of Avaya declined slightly in its third quarter, but net income was up. The company said the shift to IP from traditional TDM telephony continued, as IP product sales increased 10 percent compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2006. During the quarter, Avaya shipped more than one million IP lines for the fifth consecutive quarter. IP telephony now represents 69 percent of the company’s sales.