Friday, October 10, 2008

Qwest Killing IPTV Trial

Qwest is cancelling its Choice TV VDSL-based IPTV service that was deployed first back in 1999 on a trial basis in Arizona, and Colorado. Qwest has started phasing out its Choice TV service for 42,000 video customers in Arizona and is attempting to persuade those customers to subscribe to a satellite TV/broadband package instead.

Qwest's Choice TV service was based on Next Level VDSL technology that was later acquired by Motorola in 2003. Motorola stopped actively marketing the Next Level technology a couple of years later.

Qwest proved that a large carrier could do well with IPTV well before AT&T and Verizon got into the game. Its Next Level technology is obsolete and does not support MPEG-4 or HD. It was time to upgrade it or drop it.

Qwest has shown no further interest in IPTV and is now starting to deploy VDSL to provide a high speed data service that can be used for over the top video.

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