Intertainer Extends Entertainment-On-Demand Distribution In Manhattan Trials
Tuesday June 15, 9:06 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Intertainer, Inc.
RCN's Advanced Fiber Optic Network Delivers Intertainer To Manhattan Apartment Building
CHICAGO, June 15 /PRNewswire/ -- At the National Cable Television Association annual convention today, Intertainer, Inc. announced that select RCN customers will be the first in the Big Apple to sample Intertainer's interactive, entertainment-on-demand broadband service.
RCN, which provides residential phone, cable and Internet services in select markets from Boston to Washington, is currently conducting market tests of the Intertainer system in one Manhattan-based apartment building that has been linked to the company's state-of-the-art fiber optic network. The trial is slated to run over a six-month period to measure usage of the entertainment-on-demand service.
''Partnering with RCN provides Intertainer a wonderful opportunity to work with a new distribution partner. We are particularly excited to showcase the Intertainer service in one of the nation's most important entertainment markets,'' said Jonathan Taplin, Intertainer's co-founder and co-chief executive officer. ''Intertainer will deliver the widest selection of quality entertainment available in a single destination to our new RCN customers. We look forward to working with RCN toward the prospect of full deployment to their customers.''
''The advantage of building so much extra capacity into RCN's state-of-the- art fiber optic network is that we are able to offer next-generation services, like Intertainer, to RCN customers without increasing our network costs,'' said David C. McCourt, RCN Chairman and CEO. ''We are currently using less than 20% of RCN's total network capacity to provide our customers phone, cable and Internet services, with a virtually unlimited amount of room left over in the pipeline to accommodate a wealth of great ideas. We are excited to proceed with this test and gauge the response to Intertainer's new and unique service.''
''When RCN first previewed Intertainer at an event in the solarium of our apartment building, my wife and I immediately signed up for the service,'' said Nathan Loyer, an RCN customer and early adopter in the Manhattan trial. ''It was so easy to recognize that Intertainer is a revolutionary product that will affect the lives of many people, including ourselves. We are extremely excited to be involved in this project and hope Intertainer remains in our home forever.''
On Intertainer, trial participants may order movies, television shows, music videos, concerts and special interest programs on-demand. Additionally, viewers may purchase CDs directly from the PC/TV convergence platform through Intertainer's e-commerce capability. Intertainer also plans to offer several other e-commerce opportunities during its widespread consumer deployment.
Intertainer is also in market trials through Comcast Corporation in a Philadelphia, Pa. suburb and with US WEST in Boulder, Colo. Subscribers have provided substantial anecdotal evidence of their enjoyment of the service and buy rates have been consistent with video-on-demand trials. Technical trials also were completed in late 1997 and early 1998.
About Intertainer
Intertainer Inc. (http://www.intertainer.com), a leading provider of home entertainment services on-demand, is defining the convergence of entertainment and technology. Intertainer, with its strategic partners -- Comcast, US WEST, Sony, Intel and NBC -- provides customers with a personal gateway to thousands of hours of diverse movies, music, TV, shopping and information programming to the PC or TV using high speed data lines over cable and telephone connections. The company's entertainment-on-demand, e-commerce applications and targeted advertising will be the first services enabled by the popular PersonalJava language on Scientific-Atlanta's Explorer® 2000 set-top box. Intertainer also has solid relationships with leading companies in the broadband space, including Veon, Concurrent Computer Corporation, Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems. Intertainer is a charter member of Cisco's ''Built for Broadband'' program.
About RCN
RCN Corporation (Nasdaq: RCNC - news) is the nation's first and largest single-source, facilities-based provider of bundled communications services to the residential market, and the nation's largest targeted Internet service provider (ISP), with all of its 500,000+ customers strategically clustered in the Boston to Washington corridor. The company is currently providing local and long distance phone, cable television and its rcn.com Internet services in several markets from Boston to Washington, D.C. RCN has expanded its target market to include California's San Francisco to San Diego corridor.
RCN's True Local Network(TM) is a unique broadband fiber optic platform capable of offering a full suite of communications services -- including fully-featured voice, video and high-speed Internet -- to residential customers. The network employs SONET ring backbone architecture, and localized nodes built to ensure RCN's state-of-the-art fiber optics travel to within 900 feet of RCN customers, with fewer electronics and lower maintenance costs than existing local networks. RCN's East and West Coast local fiber optic networks target densely populated areas comprising nearly 40% of the U.S. residential communications market spread over just 6% of its geography.
SOURCE: Intertainer, Inc.
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