ANT furthers its standards strategy

06 January 2010, Cambridge

ANT, a leading provider of embedded software solutions and services to the digital media industry, has qualified as a member of The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and The Digital TV Group (DTG). The accreditations re-enforce ANT’s strong support for a standards based approach to delivering Digital TV software solutions.

ANT has recognised the importance of open standards for many years, understanding that an interoperable ecosystem encourages market growth, competition and innovation. This approach is already proven in many fields and is increasingly used to support the future for TV.

ETSI produces globally-applicable standards for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including fixed, mobile, radio, converged, broadcast and internet technologies. ETSI's purpose is to produce and perform the maintenance of the technical standards and other deliverables which are required by its members. ANT’s membership coincides with Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV’s (HbbTV) submission to ETSI of version 1.1.1 of the HbbTV specification.

In addition to the submission of the HbbTV specification to ETSI a successful interoperability workshop was hosted by IRT (Institut für Rundfunktechnik). During the three day event, attended by more than 20 companies, IRT provided live satellite feeds containing HbbTV signaling to facilitate interoperability testing against 17 different applications.

ANT is also working closely with the Connected TV Steering Group within the DTG, an industry association for digital television in the UK. The DTG was formed in the mid 90’s to facilitate the introduction of digital terrestrial TV and the Group is now at the centre of UK digital TV development. The Group is focused on emerging consumer devices and experiences including high definition TV (HD), Mobile TV, video-on-demand (VoD) and broadband TV (IPTV).

“We’re pleased to join two important industry organisations,” said Richard Baker, EVP of Sales and Marketing at ANT. “We have a strong heritage in supporting standards based solutions and feel that this strategy is vital when delivering high volume deployments. The DTG plays a key role in the development of digital television in the UK while ETSI are recognised as a leading standards organisation.”

About ANT Software Limited
ANT plc (www.antplc.com) is the leading provider of client software solutions and services to the digital media industry. It develops open-standards-based client software and applications to enable operators to exploit digital media across a broad range of consumer devices from TV’s set-top boxes and DVD players, to portable media devices such as mobile phones and personal media players, regardless of content delivery platform.

ANT enables media driven organisations to quickly create and roll-out innovative and successful applications and TV services on any consumer device, enabling operators to attract new subscribers, reduce churn and increase average revenue per user.

ANT’s software has been extensively deployed by customers throughout the world including Cisco, Chunghwa Telecom, Foxconn, France Telecom, Humax, LG/Nortel, Philips, Sagem, Samsung, SaskTel, Telecom Italia and Thomson.

ANT plc's shares are listed on AIM, a London Stock Exchange regulated market, under the ticker ANTP (Reuters: ANTP.L, Bloomberg: ANTP.LN).

Press Contacts
Ruth Jones/Katie Swan
Speed
Tel: 020 7842 3200
Email: ANT@speedcommunications.com

About ETSI
ETSI produces globally-applicable standards for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including fixed, mobile, radio, converged, aeronautical, broadcast and internet technologies and is officially recognized by the European Union as a European Standards Organization. ETSI is an independent, not-for-profit association whose 717 member companies and organizations, drawn from 62 countries across 5 continents worldwide, define its work programme and participate directly in its work.

For more information please visit: www.etsi.org

About the DTG
The Digital TV Group (DTG) is the industry association for digital television in the UK and is independent and platform neutral.

Formed in the mid 90s to facilitate the introduction of digital terrestrial TV in the UK, the group is now at the centre of UK digital TV development. It publishes and maintains the DTG 'D-Book' which sets out the detailed technical standards for digital terrestrial TV in the UK and runs the industry's test and conformance centre: DTG Testing. The DTG has ensured the delivery of a rich consumer experience, a vibrant and stable market, and helped position the UK as a world leader in the evolution of television.

The group is presently focused on emerging consumer devices and experiences including high definition TV (HD), Mobile TV, video-on-demand (VoD) and broadband TV (IPTV).