In the Wisconsin city of West Allis, a Niagara streaming media encoder is playing a central role in expanding the audience for public, educational, and government access (PEG) television programming. A product of ViewCast Corporation, a leading global provider of streaming hardware and software, the Niagara encoder has enabled the city to port its government access programs to AT&T's U-verse residential IPTV service, recently launched in the greater Milwaukee area.
"Thanks to ViewCast, we're able to bring our government access programs to an even broader audience via leading-edge IPTV, said Jerry Musial, video and cable coordinator for the City of West Allis. "The Niagara system was extremely easy to adopt, and its budget-conscious pricing played a big role in our choice. As a non-technical person, I really appreciated the excellent support and assistance we received from ViewCast, which enabled us to get up and running quickly and smoothly."
Musial also serves on the board of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA), an association that represents the communications needs and interests of local governments and their advisors.
A city of 60,000 in Milwaukee County, and the site of the Wisconsin State Fair, West Allis offers a wide range of government access programming to its citizens. The programs are locally produced as well as supplied by state and federal agencies, and include information about state and city services, community events, and coverage of city council meetings. The ViewCast Niagara system encodes the video for transport over a T1 network to the U-verse system, which began serving the West Allis viewing area in February.
All Niagara encoders have AT&T's U-verse PEG streaming specifications programmed as a menu item, and ViewCast is one of only four providers noted in U-verse's PEG encoder information collateral. This makes ViewCast an ideal solution for municipalities that are seeking to deliver PEG content over this new, rapidly growing IPTV platform.
ViewCast President and Chief Executive Dave Stoner said: "Niagara encoders are playing a central role in expanding the audience for PEG television programming. Mr. Musial's involvement in NATOA is a testament to West Allis' leadership in the area of municipal communications, as is the city's commitment to embracing advanced new media technologies such as IPTV. We are pleased that we were able to meet West Allis' needs and look forward to continuing our successful partnership."
"Moreover, we see continuing and rising adoption of video streaming for sports and entertainment applications, as well as public access, as evidence of the growing trend toward using the Internet as a major channel for streaming all varieties of programs, information, and other content," Stoner added.
