Hewlett-Packard has upgraded its carrier-grade media server with improved broadband video capabilities. HP OpenCall Media Platform 4.0 is a software suite running on Linux-powered x86 servers or blade servers that connects to either TDM or IP networks.
“We have enhanced the video capabilities available on the platform,” said Ed Veryney, director of interaction products for the OpenCall product line.
“We had limited video capability in the previous release. This one extends the functionality and performance.” HP hopes to take advantage of the increasing interest by mobile users in video for messaging, blogs and conferencing.
Among its advantages, Media Platform lets carriers consolidate multimedia applications on one server. Competitors offer mainly point solutions, Verney said.
However, while the product has been in the market for four years and counts customers in some 45 countries, it hasn’t been deployed in Canada or the U.S. yet. Instead, carriers in Europe, South America and Asia are Media Platform’s big customers.
Rogers Communications is using it in a trial, Verney said. A Rogers spokesman said the company won’t comment on potentially launched applications. Verney said one problem is that North American carriers haven’t adopted open standards for applications.
Media Platform runs on standard or blade servers with Red Hat Linux 4 now, and, early next year will be certified for RHL5.
In addition, he said, another limiting factor has been that handsets sold here may need special components for running video.
OpenCall Media Platform supports access to circuit-switched 3G and 2G networks; packet-switched, NGN and IMS; broadband/Internet for content access and Web 2.0 and IMS for information such as presence location and social preferences.
It implements W3C, IETF and 3GPP standard interfaces, such as VoiceXML and CCXML, and protocols such as Netann, MSCML, SIP, RTP, RTCP, RTSP and MRCP.
