Mariner's IPTV QoE Solution Improves Service Quality and Reduces OPEX for One of North America's Largest Regional Operators

SAINT JOHN, New Brunswick, Nov. 4, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Mariner today announced that its xVu™ solution has helped Bell Aliant to better manage OPEX for its TV service over the last 12 months, while improving overall quality of service levels.

Mariner's xVu suite enables service providers to maintain complete visibility of customers' in-home IPTV quality of experience (QoE), including throughout the contentious "last mile," without requiring the addition of new hardware.  

Bell Aliant, one of North America's largest regional telecommunications providers, has worked closely with Mariner and has experienced improvements in three key operational areas for its IPTV services – dispatch rates, rework and help desk call volumes.

xVu's ability to proactively diagnose network related issues has meant fewer truck rolls, effectively lowering dispatch rates and providing cost savings.  xVu's non-intrusive service monitoring, task-purposed user interfaces, market analytics and viewing statistics, have also helped Bell Aliant to address service issues in a proactive and customer-centric way, leading to reductions in both rework and incoming help desk call volumes.

"xVu makes critical customer usage and service performance information readily available to Bell Aliant at multiple levels within the organization," said Dana Lohnes, Bell Aliant TV Operations Manager. "We are finding there are often three dimensions to each instance of service issues - the customer's report, the technician's initial diagnosis, and xVu's analysis. xVu is able to provide the historical and factual data that can guide our technicians to resolve the problem quickly and to our customers' satisfaction."

Bell Aliant will be sharing more details of its IPTV successes at Telco TV 2010. Dana Lohnes, Bell Aliant TV Operations Manager, is a featured speaker in the Managing the Subscriber Experience track on Wednesday, November 10^th at 15:30, and will be joined by Marc Savoie, VP Product Management at Mariner, to discuss the dual challenge IPTV providers face as they look to continually enhance their IPTV services while containing growing operating costs as the popularity of the service grows and its footprint expands.

Key Facts

• Mariner's xVu is an award-winning IPTV service assurance platform that is currently deployed with service providers across Canada, the U.S., and the Caribbean and in Asia-Pacific markets.  The solution is also in lab trials with service providers in Europe.
• xVu is a recognized Microsoft® partner in both Test and Measurement and Application development.
• By deploying Mariner's xVu, operators are able to provide Quality of Experience (QoE) insight to head-end technicians, network operations, field technicians and customer service representatives, enabling them to proactively and efficiently confirm and isolate network issues before they negatively affect the end user's experience.  This insight significantly lowers OPEX costs by reducing costly truck rolls and customer churn.  

Supporting Quotes

"Bell Aliant invested quality time assessing xVu for their TV service and I think their diligence is really paying off", says Curtis Howe, President and CEO of Mariner. "Service quality and operations efficiency is not an either-or proposition and Bell Aliant is proving that to be the case with their use of xVu in support of their IPTV service."

About Mariner

Mariner is a leading provider of innovative IP video solutions and technologies that deliver unique value to the expanding IPTV industry. Mariner's flagship TV care product, xVu, specializes on Next-Gen IPTV service monitoring. Mariner's architecture and toolset enables Service Providers to better assure the viewing experience, isolate troubles and guide cost effective resolution such as "Smart" truck rolls. Mariner's frostt platform delivers interactive TV, social networking and self-service capabilities to the TV in a highly compelling viewing experience.

SOURCE Mariner