Enters agreement to acquire ETV Interactive, adding Video on Demand and digital TV to its portfolio of services
Orlando, FL – (June 27, 2007) — iBAHN today demonstrated next generation direct to the guest room digital entertainment services which rely on a converged network created especially to meet the challenges of the hospitality industry. iBAHN has also announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire ETV Interactive, a world leader in single cable digital TV, entertainment and communications systems for the hospitality industry. The deal is expected to close in the next 30 days. In addition, iBAHN unveiled PriorityOne, providing unique management services for today’s congested broadband networks. Now hoteliers can have un-matched control over the quality of their voice, video, and data offerings to the hotel guests. These next generation innovative solutions were introduced at the HITEC tradeshow.
ETV Interactive Acquisition
In support of its strategic vision, iBAHN released its plan to become a leader in integrated digital IPTV and video solutions for hospitality, and announced its agreement to acquire ETV Interactive. iBAHN is focusing on the blending of the Internet content and broadcast TV / Video on Demand markets, with plans to manage and effectively deliver digital streaming video content on the Internet.
ETV Interactive, a leading provider of interactive IPTV and Video entertainment and business systems to the global hospitality market, has agreed to be acquired by iBAHN. ETV Interactive is a one-stop shop delivering a complete solution including: Digital TV; Radio, Video and Music on-demand; Integrated wired/WiFi roaming broadband access; TV Internet and Email, plus business centre solutions — all distributed over a single wire. ETV Interactive currently provides services in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, and, in combination with iBAHN will launch service in the US.
“The ETV team has developed a first class digital to the room entertainment suite over the last nine years”, said Steven Morris, CEO and founder of ETV Interactive. “We are very pleased to join with the global leader in managed network solutions to provide a compelling solution for hoteliers and their guests.”
With hoteliers continuing their upgrades to high-definition TV screens over the next few years, the value of using all-digital video signals to the rooms, versus technology that translate signals back and forth from analog to digital several times in the delivery process, becomes ever more important. iBAHN’s network and video delivery solutions are designed to be all-digital, and thereby deliver higher display and sound quality.
“iBAHN’s investment in ETV Interactive demonstrates our ongoing commitment to deliver innovative solutions to the hospitality industry. Hoteliers can future-proof their hotel technology offerings by adopting the iBAHN PriorityOne infrastructure and ETV Interactive video offerings for their hotels,” said David W. Garrison, Chief Executive Officer for iBAHN. “Together with ETV, iBAHN delivers an all-digital solution to the hotel room for true managed network services.”
PriorityOne Launch
To support the all-digital services and bandwidth demands created by managing converged services, iBAHN has added unique quality of service capabilities to its network. Named iBAHN PriorityOne, this service is designed to better manage digital services within the hotel, by dynamically allocating prioritization and quality of service to applications using the system. One of the biggest areas of network congestion is the local loop wide area network (WAN) and only iBAHN has a solution to prioritize this congestion point in combination with the hotel network.
PriorityOne is designed to address issues in today’s hotel broadband environment where Internet services are not managed, and a single guest can monopolize the available bandwidth by using applications such as video/music streaming and gaming. PriorityOne is designed to give hoteliers control over which applications have priority on the network. So a hotelier who wants to prioritize VPN connections over gamers, can do so using PriorityOne
“iBAHN has long recognized the growing usage needs of guests, and specifically developed PriorityOne to address the need to more effectively manage competing needs for traffic on the network. PriorityOne prioritizes traffic for each guest, by application,” said Brett Molen, Chief Technology Officer for iBAHN. “This enables higher quality delivery across a congested network, thereby improving the guest’s experience on the iBAHN network.”
