Latens and Smart Choice Join for Irish IPTV Service

September 6, 2006 – Latens Systems, provider of IPTV Conditional Access (CA) in Europe, has today announced that it has signed a deal to supply the CA system for Irish telecom provider Smart Telecom’s SmartVision IPTV service. The contract follows the successful conclusion of a pilot of the Latens system with the Dublin-based operator.

Smart Telecom claims to be the fastest growing provider of residential, SME and corporate telecommunication services in Ireland and is believed to be the first operator in the country to provide digital triple play via a high performance FTTH network. Smart Vision offers subscribers over 100 TV and radio channels including Sky Sports, Sky Movies, MTV, Setanta Sports, Channel 4 and E4. The Latens system integrated seamlessly with Smart Vision’s IPTV ecosystem, which includes a VC8000 IP Streamer and iTV Manager middleware from Minerva and a population of Amino 110 set-top boxes.

“We spent a considerable amount of time weighing up our CA options,” said Charles McEvoy, General Manager, Smart Telecom. “We’ve awarded the CA contract to Latens, as not only did the system perform flawlessly during the pilot, but additionally the company also demonstrated the flexibility, power and scalability to provide us with the future-proofed content and revenue protection that we require.”

“We’re delighted to have completed this deal with Smart Telecom,” said Andy Mathieson, Director, Latens. “Smart Vision is an innovative and forward-thinking Pay-TV operator and I think that’s reflected in the fact that they have chosen our advanced next generation software CA.”

“Smart Vision has exciting and ambitious plans for the future. The flexibility of Latens’ CA technology and the range of our vendor partners means that Smart Vision will be free to develop a network architecture and deployment strategy and launch advanced services such as PVR, VOD or interactivity with little or no integration required,” concluded, Matheison.