PacketFront Looks to Accelerate IPTV Service Quality with RPM Feature

| Feb 22, 2008 | Broadband Infrastructure| Show Update

| Analyst: Erik Keith

Current Perspective: Positive/Neutral
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: Moderate

Event Summary

February 21, 2008 -- PacketFront is launching the real-time protocol monitoring (RPM) feature that allows network owners to monitor, in real time, the TV quality in broadband networks, thereby ensuring higher service quality and faster and more efficient trouble shooting of IPTV streams as well as removing the need for investment in external probes and tools and related labor costs. The RPM feature will be available with the ASR 5000 FTTH platform during the spring of 2008, and it will be demonstrated at the FTTH Council Conference in Paris on February 27-28.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Slightly positive on PacketFront’s introduction of its real-time protocol monitoring (RPM) feature, which the company has incorporated into its ASR5000 FTTH platform. This may prove to be a key differentiator for PacketFront vis-à-vis FTTH solutions from rival vendors, since the differentials between access platform hardware are sometimes very difficult to quantify. From the operator/customer perspective, the RPM feature increases the appeal of the ASR5000 solution, and from a competitor standpoint, it serves notice to rival vendors that PacketFront has expanded the scope of its software-centric differentiation efforts in order to remain a solid contender in the fiber-based access market.

• Vendor Importance: High to PacketFront, which needed to improve its advanced services delivery/support proposition in the next-generation (IP/Ethernet) broadband infrastructure market. With the RPM feature, PacketFront now offers operators a high-value test and measurement capability that is integrated into the ASR5000 access router, as opposed to yet another “add-on” tool that requires both incremental capital investment and employee training.

• Market Impact: Moderate on the overall FTTH market, because when the RPM feature becomes generally available this spring – and even with its moderate level of success as a FTTH supplier, primarily in European open access/active Ethernet networks – PacketFront remains one of the smaller contenders in the overall next-generation broadband infrastructure market. The RPM capability, while undoubtedly improving the company’s competitive positioning, will not result in a dramatic gain in customer/market traction by PacketFront.

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