Yes, the NCTC.

I have spoken with two of the vendors you mentioned. Neither have pass-through licensing rights. I still have to go directly to most of the content providers to get the proper licensing rights.

There are a few vendors out there who will help a company attain these rights, but the solution is not turnkey on licensing. To be clear, it is not turnkey for the major U.S. content providers.

Gian Anthony Constantine
Senior Network Design Engineer
Earthlink, Inc.

On Jan 12, 2007, at 10:14 AM, Frank Bulk wrote:

You mean the NCTC?  Yes, they did close their doors for new membership, but
there are regional head ends that represent a larger number of ITCs that
have been able to directly negotiate with the content providers.  

And then there's the turnkey vendors: IPTV Americas, SES Americom' IP-PRIME,
and Falcon Communications.

It's not entirely impossible.

Frank

________________________________

From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Gian
Constantine
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 7:47 AM
To: kuhtzch@corp.earthlink.net
Cc: Marshall Eubanks; nanog@merit.edu
Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?


Many of the small carriers, who are doing IPTV in the U.S., have acquired
their content rights through a consortium, which has since closed its doors
to new membership. 

I cannot stress this enough: content is the key to a good industry-changing
business model. Broad appeal content will gain broad interest. Broad
interest will change the playing field and compel content providers to
consider alternative consumption/delivery models.

The ILECs are going to do it. They have deep pockets. Look at how quickly
they were able to get franchising laws adjusted to allow them to offer
video. 

Gian Anthony Constantine
Senior Network Design Engineer
Earthlink, Inc.