GeoVideo Creates New Video Technology for Net – Company Business and Marketing
Karen Brown
A new subsidiary of Lucent Technologies will forge the first video network designed exclusively for the Internet, linking 67 cities worldwide by 2003.
GeoVideo Networks Inc. plans to create a fiber optic network that can deliver HDTV-quality, live bi-directional Internet Protocol video marketed to industries including financial, medical, education and entertainment.
“Now with GeoVideo Networks we not only bring new technology to the marketplace and to customers but are truly redefining the way people will think about, create and use video,” said Tom Uhlman, president-Lucent’s New Ventures Group, which will oversee the subsidiary.
Along with fiber optic network provider MetroMedia Fiber Network Inc. and CSRG Digital LLC, a nationwide consortium of 27 public television stations, GeoVideo plans to establish the network, giving businesses and the public the ability to send and receive video data over a dedicated broadband connection.
“We are really going to be a VSP — a video service provider,” said Cliff Shore, co-CEO of GeoVideo Networks. “We’re going to create the first in what we believe is high-quality broadband video Internet.” The first step is the main $4 billion fiber network now being laid by Metromedia Fiber Network Inc. and its subsidiary AboveNet, which will kick in global IP services to create video hubs throughout the world.
The first link between New York City and Los Angeles will be lit later this spring, Shore added. By year’s-end, Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas are scheduled to come online. London will be the first international network hub.
For the U.S. network, pairing up with CSRG gives the network stations in major markets the capability to serve as video hubs and bases for regional marketing efforts.
“We’re excited — it extends the boundaries of educational TV,” said Bill Kobin, CSRG president. “After all, public television began as educational TV, and education has always been at the heart of our endeavors.”
Shore said the network would offer two levels of service — a pro video quality service through high-definition TV communication and a consumer quality service delivered to the corporate LAN, giving companies TV-quality teleconferencing and video transfer services via desktop computers.
A proprietary GeoVideo browser will be provided customers, allowing them 16 simultaneous video windows at 30 frames per second each, with the only limitation being the processing speed and monitor size of the computer.
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