B1

Brett Bundale
Telegraph-Journal

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

Speak Up

Mariner Partners Inc. announced a collaboration with telecommunications giant Cisco Systems, Inc. Tuesday that could propel the Saint John firm to the forefront of North America's information technology sector.

Enlarge Photo

Matthew Sherwood/for the telegraph-journal

Propel ICT’s Jeff Roach says Mariner’s collaboration with Cisco is significant and will help put New Brunswick’s Internet protocol television experts on the map.

Mariner has integrated its xVu technology, a digital video service assurance platform, with Cisco's Visual Quality of Experience platform.

The combined technology could save users - large service providers like Rogers Communications Inc. or Bell Aliant Inc. - millions of dollars through better bandwidth use, reduced error rates and faster responses to service-quality issues.

"Cisco's VQE technology has already been on the market for almost a year. We've taken our technology and created a version of it that works specifically with Cisco to improve the service," said Brock Sansom, Mariner's vice-president of sales and marketing.

"This integration opens up a much larger market for us and accelerates the global reach of Mariner's technology," he said. "It will enhance the quality for TV customers and save service providers money."

Executive director of Propel ICT Jeff Roach said Mariner's collaboration with Cisco is significant and will help put New Brunswick's Internet protocol television experts on the map.

"This kind of partnership brings attention to the province's industry," he said. "It will definitely give Mariner an advantage in that market and help the company grow."

Lynda Leonard, senior vice-president of the Information Technology Association of Canada, said Internet protocol video solutions are part of a burgeoning industry.

"This is a growing sector and Cisco is a highly significant player in the marketplace," she said. "This collaboration is proof of the innovation that is going on in New Brunswick."

San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco is a multinational corporation with more than 66,000 employees and annual revenue of US$39 billion in 2008. Although Mariner's market penetration is only a small fraction of Cisco's, both technology firms share a commitment to "delivering and assuring the performance of entertainment-grade video services to service providers," Samson said.

"It is this shared focus on the quality of experience for the IPTV consumer that makes the integration of xVu with Cisco's VQE such an attractive solution set for the service providers," he added.

Sansom said the Mariner and Cisco technology generates a positive return on investment in less than a year.

"It's a very fast payback," he said. "It can bring down operational costs for service providers by millions of dollars a year because we eliminate the glitches that drive those expenses."

The combined technology creates an effective system that provides network operations, field technicians and senior management with increased insight into network monitoring and service issues, Sansom said.

"It allows them to correct network problems before they negatively affect the end-user's quality of experience," he said. "This improved application performance reduces costs by curbing customer turnover."