Verizon Media Server Nearing Field Trials
Verizon got in the holiday spirit last year by dropping a short video that gave a taste of the future for Verizon FIOS subscribers; a future in which Verizon would serve TV streams to every room in subscribers’ homes via a media server. There were even seemingly pie-in-the-sky scenarios as the media server was depicted streaming out to game consoles, computers, and mobile devices simultaneously. It turns out that Verizon may actually be getting close to putting their media server concept to the test in limited field trials in time for the 1 year anniversary of the teaser video’s release. There may not be a whole lot known about the box that Motorola is building for Verizon, but if Verizon has success with it, don’t be too surprised if other service providers decide they need to get in on the server action as well. At the same time, if the Verizon Media Server behaves in the manner depicted in the video, then it may be time to declare the addition of IP transcoder devices to multi-room streaming setups a bonafide trend.
I hear it’s likely we’ll only see a managed field trial of the Media Server before the end of the year, but at least Verizon is moving in the right direction. After early talk of porting FiOS TV to mobile devices, we’ve had precious little action from Verizon on the mobile access front.