EchoStar Satellite Services signed an agreement to deliver its ViP-TV IP video transport service to Citizens Cablevision, a broadband data, video and voice provider in Virginia, EchoStar announced July 27.
    EchoStar will transport up to 42 high-definition TV channels to the customer’s IP headend. The ViP-TV transport service aims to offer a secure, MPEG-4 encoded IP stream of approximately 275 TV and music channels from the AMC-16 satellite, located at 85 degrees West.
    Citizens Cablevision said it sought a platform that would enable it to offer competitive video services using its existing IP network. “We wanted access to IP-encapsulated, high quality HD channels that would let us expand our range of services easily without complex integration needs," Danny Vaughn, network manager of Citizens Cablevision, said in a statement.
    Separately, EchoStar signed an agreement to deliver its ViP-TV video transport service to KPU Telecommunications, a provider of telecommunications and video services to a city of approximately 14,000 residents in Ketchikan, Alaska, under EchoStar’s IP-Prime Conversion Program, the company announced June 9.
     KPU will receive transport of up to 42 high-definition TV channels to its IP headend. With the addition from EchoStar, Ketchikan will offer a total of 58 HD channels along with a suite of more than 140 standard-definition TV channels.
     Commercial transport provider IP-Prime announced previously it is discontinuing its video transport service to telco facilities by July 31, 2009. EchoStar’s IP-Prime Conversion Program provides qualified customers with EchoStar’s ViP-TV transport service, replacement IDC satellite receivers and a standard professional installation, including a satellite dish re-point, cabling and connectors.
     EchoStar announced in March that it would launch a conversion program designed to provide continued delivery of U.S. video transport services for telco IP headend facilities following SES‘ announcement that it would discontinue its IP-Prime services starting in August.