Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBC), a provider of high-speed Internet, digital TV, telephone, and commercial services in Minnesota and Wisconsin, has expanded its affiliation with Espial (TSX:ESP) to offer app-based IPTV and OTT services to set-tops, mobile phones, tablets, and streaming players including Roku. Hiawatha Broadband first deployed Espial's cloud-based video solution last November.
"Espial's Elevate platform enables us to offer a seamless experience to our customers across set-top boxes and consumer-owned devices." said Jim Kronebusch, vice president of Technology & Engineering of HBC. "It also allows us to streamline our customer service and support operations with the use of a single cloud-managed platform for our cable, IPTV and OTT services."
Espial's Elevate solution is a multi-tenant software-as-a-service (SaaS) video platform designed to allow operators to manage, deliver and monetize video. The platform offers a user interface with voice-based navigation, discovery, and viewing of traditional content and streaming services like Netflix and YouTube. It provides operators with cloud tools for their operations, marketing, support, and engineering - including analytics, promotions, segmentation, and diagnostics.
Hiawatha Broadband, based in Winona, MN, builds fiber-to-the premises (FTTP) networks offering 1 Gbps speeds, in addition to wireless broadband, in nearly 30 communities.
