Last Friday’s University of Waterloo’s Daily Bulletin announced that the Media and Mobility Network Project (MMNP), described here a few weeks ago, has launched its IPTV technology trial.
The IPTV technology is being provided by Inuk Networks, a Terry Matthews company based in the UK.
“It’s full-screen, broadcast-quality television,” says Sean Van Koughnett, director of UW Graphics and the project manager of an initiative to bring electronic innovations to the residences and eventually the rest of the campus.
“It’s called the Media and Mobility Network Project,” Van Koughnett said, “but it’s really a bunch of projects under one umbrella.” The Internet television is one part of MMNP, a small-scale introduction of Voice over Internet Protocol telephone service to residence rooms is another part, and some cellphone projects are on the horizon, he said.
The MMNP project includes plans to bring savings to UW residences which are all currently equipped with landline phones. Considering that students are equipped with cellphones and use a variety of VOIP services such as Skype, the project is looking at a plan to get rid of the POTS lines.
Over the long term, the Bulletin says that MMNP’s vision is to develop a service that enables students “to talk, text and surf wherever they are on campus for much less than what they currently have to pay.”
Incidentally, Terry Matthews will be a keynote speaker at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit next June. I’ll have more information about our speakers in the next day or so.
Update [November 1, 2:20 pm]
There is a story about the MMNP project in the University of Waterloo student paper The Imprint.