Internap Powers VitalStream TV Production
Costa Mesa, California – (The Hosting News) – February 22, 2007 – Web host and audio and video streaming firm, VitalStream Holdings, Inc., along with multi-channel television services company, Planetvu Corporation, will deliver live on-demand TV programming across the Internet, utilizing a combination of the companies’ technologies.
Using Internap’s premium IP connectivity, colocation and route optimization appliances, combined with VitalStream’s content delivery network (CDN), Planetvu has met the challenge of distributing broadcast quality content to over 205 million unique broadband households in over 120 countries. Collectively, the technologies provide an end-to-end solution that delivers fast, reliable access to Planetvu’s IPTV service from anywhere in the world.
Planetvu’s global footprint utilizes public networks, so acquiring live television signals into its platform as well as distributing content to customers brings unique physical challenges. Delivering a broadcast quality picture over the public Internet required specific expertise ultimately delivered by the combined solution of Internap and VitalStream.
Stuart Ross, President and Chief Executive Officer of Planetvu remarked, “As a company with an aggressive vision for growth, we need technology partners willing to work with us to support our long-term development goals. With Internap and VitalStream, we can confidently increase the number of subscribers while providing innovative services to our current and new customers. After unsuccessful attempts by nearly a dozen other companies, the results from implementing the Internap solution were both effective and dramatic. The technology overcame packet loss and network congestion, which resulted in a superb quality TV signal. Since then, our customer satisfaction has significantly improved thanks to the network’s high performance.”
Once inside the Internap robust data center, VitalStream delivers Planetvu’s live video using the Windows Media platform. The VitalStream content delivery network architecture reliably delivers broadcast quality content to Planetvu’s large global audience regardless of location, size or device. VitalStream’s MediaConsole® application allows Planetvu to easily acquire business intelligence and other important metrics such as audience size, location and viewing time needed to assess ROI.
James P. DeBlasio, Chief Executive Officer for Internap added, “The successful delivery of Planetvu’s live video affirms the power of Internap and VitalStream’s joint value proposition. Together, we’re excited about the possibilities of helping our customers compete on a global scale by offering one of the industry’s most comprehensive portfolios for Internet business, particularly for rich media delivery.”
Philip N. Kaplan, Chief Operating Officer and Founder of VitalStream added, “Our goal was to provide an end-to-end solution that helps Planetvu deliver reliable, high quality video to its multi-national customer base. With VitalStream and Internap taking care of the underlying technology needs of the platform, as well as the complex requirements for live video, Planetvu can now concentrate on growing its business by offering a differentiated entertainment service.”
Prior to deploying the technologies, Planetvu found the industry unprepared to service the unique requirements of delivering live video over Internet Protocol, and the structure of other standard Service Level Agreements (SLAs) did not satisfy Planetvu’s quality of service demands. With the Internap proactive SLA, PlanetVu has a 100% uptime guarantee.
A team of Internap network engineers configured its premise-based route optimization technology to accelerate Planetvu’s point-to-point backhaul of signals from Dubai to New York City. With network speed being critical to application availability, Internap optimizes the performance of Planetvu’s live video across 6,000 miles by overcoming the distance-induced limitations of various Internet protocols. Performance culprits such as latency and packet loss are mitigated to deliver content with LAN-like speed.
Internap and VitalStream have entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which Internap will acquire all of the capital stock of VitalStream in exchange for the issuance of approximately 11.9 million shares of Internap’s common stock. Internap and VitalStream will each hold special meetings of stockholders, for the purpose of approving the acquisition. The companies anticipate that the acquisition will close as soon as practicable after the stockholder meetings, subject to approvals by Internap and VitalStream stockholders and the satisfaction of other closing conditions. The information about the transaction in this release is neither a solicitation of a proxy, an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell shares of Internap’s common stock.
Planetvu Corporation provides multi-language ethnic television and entertainment products and services around the world, through the deployment of a proprietary Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) platform built and supported by leading technology companies. Through their personal computers, millions of citizens have access to their favorite television programs from their country of origin, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Planet IPTV platform is one of the world first global multichannel distribution services, and one of the most advanced Internet Protocol television distribution networks on the planet.
Internap is a market leader of intelligent route control solutions that bring reliability, performance and security to the Internet. The company’s patented and patent-pending technologies address the inherent weaknesses of the Internet, such as latency and packetloss, enabling businesses to take full advantage of the benefits of deploying mission-critical applications such as e-commerce, VoIP, and audio/video across IP networks. Internap currently serves more than 2,200 customers throughout the U.S., Asia, Australia Canada and Europe.
Internap and Performance IP™ are trademarks of Internap Network Services, and VitalStream and MediaConsole are registered trademarks of VitalStream, Inc. All other trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
VitalStream, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of VitalStream Holdings, Inc., is a global provider of integrated content delivery services that endeavors to enable businesses to broadcast digital media and communications to worldwide audiences via the Internet. The company provides complete solutions, including video and audio streaming, advertising placement, delivery, reporting and analysis, live event broadcasting, media asset management, integrated web hosting and consulting services, designed to seamlessly integrate with leading streaming media technologies. VitalStream engineered its content delivery network certified for quality delivery in the United States, Europe and Asia. VitalStream’s customer base includes streamers of audio and video content, including Disney and Myspace.com. Notable new customers added during the second quarter of 2006 include Greyhound, the United Nations, Microsoft Prodigy, Buy.com, QuePasa, Home Depot and Gillette.
For more information about Planetvu, please visit: www.planetvu.com.
To learn more about Internap, please visit: www.internap.com.
For more information about Vital Stream, please visit: www.vitalstream.com.