News for and about the Internet2 community

["Ellyn Stepanek (OSTN)" <>]

Contact:
Rachel Freeman
Communications Manager, Development Programme
JANET(UK)

+44 (0)1235 822 307

Ellyn Stepanek
Communications Specialist
OSTN

216-589-9626 ext. 234


JANET(UK) Partners with OSTN to Launch IPTV to Universities in the 
United Kingdom

OSTN Student-Produced, Educational, Foreign Language, News & 
Entertainment IPTV Programming Available to JANET -Connected Sites

Oxfordshire, UK – July 2, 2007 – JANET(UK) today announced an IPTV 
partnership with the Open Student Television Network (OSTN). JANET(UK) 
will offer OSTN’s educational, foreign language, news, and entertainment 
IPTV content to all of its connected sites, representing a user base of 
up to eighteen million users which includes all colleges, universities 
and the majority of schools in the UK.

JANET is the UK’s national network for research and education and 
connects a wide range of education and research institutions across 
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. From schools, FE Colleges 
and Universities to large research institutions, JANET provides a 
reliable and resilient network, enhanced through a program of 
leading-edge developments and services.

Available on personal computers within the UK, OSTN is the leading 
global provider of educational, foreign language, news, and 
entertainment IPTV content and services, and features the only 24/7 
worldwide channel exclusively devoted to student-produced programming, 
airing content from over 50 higher education institutions.

“OSTN creates possibilities for student collaboration on a scale 
unimaginable only several years ago,” said Randy Winchester, Team Leader 
for MIT Cable Television at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
“I am anticipating that OSTN will cause a huge revival in video and film 
in the UK as it did here in Cambridge.”

In collaborating with JANET in the United Kingdom, OSTN will now make 
its channels available to JANET’s user base. The alliance will also 
provide both parties an exciting opportunity to introduce new services 
to the JANET community.

“OSTN gives our students the experience of working in conjunction with a 
national network, producing for a national audience, and presenting 
their work in a national forum. Thanks to OTSN, our students will get to 
share experiences with their peers in ways we couldn’t even imagine a 
few years ago,” said Steve Yavner, University of Miami’s Faculty Advisor 
for UMTV.

“We are pleased to partner with JANET(UK) to deliver IPTV to the UK’s 
colleges and universities,” said Prashant Chopra, Chief Executive 
Officer of OSTN. “We also look forward to collaborating with our 
colleagues in the UK to aggregate and distribute student-produced, 
educational and news programming worldwide.”

Along with student-produced programming, content available on OSTN 
includes the OSTN student channel, educational channels such as NASA TV, 
C-SPAN, University of California Television (UCTV) and the Florida 
Educational Channel, news channels such as MSNBU and Fox News, 
entertainment channels such as the Sci-Fi and USA Networks, and foreign 
language channels such as CCTV (Chinese), TV5 (French), and RAI (Italian).

“Our partnership with OSTN will open up a whole host of opportunities 
for the student community across JANET,” said Tim Marshall, Chief 
Executive Officer at JANET(UK) and former BBC and Disney TV executive. 
“This cutting-edge converged technology will not only give students 
access to a whole host of vibrant new resources but will also encourage 
collaboration across campus and indeed the whole education sector.”

For more information on receiving OSTN, contact Shane Walker, Lead of 
the OSTN-JANET(UK) Project, at  or 216-470-6673.

###

About OSTN
OSTN is the leading provider of educational, foreign language, news, and 
entertainment IPTV content and services. OSTN features the only 24/7 
worldwide channel exclusively devoted to student-produced programming. 
OSTN now is delivered to nearly 60 million subscribers at more than 
4,500 university member campuses and 46 countries around the globe. OSTN 
can be viewed on televisions and personal computers.

In North America, OSTN uses Internet2 and National LambdaRail’s advanced 
network to distribute programming to members. It uses ORION in Ontario, 
Canada and the GEANT2 Network, managed by DANTE, in the European Union. 
GEANT2 links to Asia via TEIN2, the Middle East & Africa via EuroMed, 
Latin and South America via ALICE, Mexico via CUDI and Australia via 
AARNet. For more information, visit www.ostn.tv/.

About JANET(UK)
JANET(UK) manages the operation and development of JANET on behalf of 
JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee). JANET(UK) is government 
funded, with the primary aim of providing and developing a network 
infrastructure that meets the needs of the education and research 
communities. www.ja.net

About JANET
JANET is the network dedicated to the needs of education and research in 
the UK. It connects the UK's education and research organisations to 
each other, as well as to the rest of the world through links to the 
global Internet. In addition, JANET includes a separate network that is 
available to the community for experimental activities in network 
development.

Trademarks
JANET is a registered trademark of the Higher Education Funding Councils 
for England, Scotland and Wales. The JNT Association is the registered 
user of this trademark.

JANET(UK) is a trademark of the JNT Association.

About JISC
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) supports further and 
higher education by providing strategic guidance, advice and 
opportunities to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to 
support teaching, learning, research and administration. JISC is funded 
by all the UK post-16 and higher education funding councils: JISC - 
www.jisc.ac.uk.