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IPTV the journey to personalized TV
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Contents:
Introduction
The digital natives are growing up
A completely new consumer experience
Ready for Personalized TV
The road to the Individual TV Experience
The introduction of IMS-TV
Creating a mass market for IPTV
Winning the battle for the Connected Home
New services supported by advertising
Managing more content on more platforms
More complexity – but more help
Stay ahead of the game
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Introduction
Over the last decade, Pay-TV platform operators have adapted
their technologies and business models to incorporate digital TV,
interactivity, video-on-demand (VOD), personal video recorders
(PVR), and more recently, HDTV. Not surprisingly, most of these
innovations have been focused on the home television set –
which is where the TV industry has traditionally made its living.
The changes during the next 10 years
will be equally exciting – and possibly
even more significant. That is because
television will start to converge with
fixed-line and mobile telecoms, and
entertainment and communications will
blend into unified service propositions.
Viewers will be offered Internet-sourced
video alongside traditional television
and VOD as part of an increasingly
personalized TV experience.
Consumers will be able to access
their converged multimedia services
on television, through their PC or on
handheld devices including mobile
phones.
This paper outlines our vision for the future of television and
illustrates how all these consumer propositions are possible
today. It shows how operators can adapt their networks and
service layers cost-effectively to make personalized TV a reality.
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The digital natives are growing up
Convergence-led TV experiences are the necessary response to
a revolution in multimedia consumption over the last five years,
which has been brought to prominence by headline figures for
Internet video downloads, the growth of social networking, and
an increasing acceptance of time-shifted television.
Young consumers – the so-called ‘digital natives’ - have been
watching less linear broadcast TV and more on-demand
content on the television, PC, and mobile phone. They have
been pursuing converged entertainment and communication
experiences that are sometimes solitary but often sociable and
always built around personal content preferences.
The impact on the television industry would have been greater
if the digital natives were older, making the purchase decisions
when choosing a Pay-TV or triple-play provider. But they are
growing up. As more digital natives become heads-of-household,
and as older consumers adopt more personalized entertainment
habits, the television and communications landscape will start
to alter – slowly at first and then, as competitive pressures are
brought to bear, rapidly and dramatically.
Figure 1: Typical content consumption by the digital native on entry to theworkforce
The Individual TV Experience
The post-digital, post-wireless, post-Internet generation thinks
and behaves differently than their parents. Ericsson Consumer
Lab investigated their desires as part of a global study covering
35,000 consumers. They identified four key requirements for
next-generation TV. These are ‘TV that is personal’, ‘TV that
connects me to everything’, ‘TV that is high quality’ and ‘TV that
is worth the money.’
‘TV that is personal’ means people want to control what they
watch, when they watch it, and which devices they watch it
on. They want the ability to time-shift their viewing and want
to be able to transfer content from one device to another, like
from the home television to their mobile phone when they
leave the house. They only want advertising messages that
are relevant to them, and they want user-generated as well
as professionally produced content because, for them,
entertainment is entertainment.
During this extensive consumer study, it became obvious that
younger consumers want to communicate, share content,
view content and even produce content – all at the same time
on the same device. ‘TV that connects me to everything’
represents this vision of customers living their lives online and
on three screens.
‘TV that is high quality’ means consumers want to be entertained
and never bored. They will only accept high picture quality and
are unforgiving of performance glitches. They want great HDTV
for their widescreen TVs. All services must be easy-to-use
whether viewed on TV, PC or mobile phone, and must allow
users to quickly find the content they want. Consumers want
the same functional choices whether they are watching their
60 inch plasma, laptop or mobile phone.
For television to be ‘worth the money’ it must be valuable to
consumers but also affordable as a monthly subscription.
People are willing to pay for services that address an urgent
need, have a social element such as peer pressure or status, or
which are convenient.
The Individual TV Experience accepts the desires and demands
of modern consumers and will quickly appeal to all age groups.
It provides a clear roadmap to make them a reality. It is
consumer-focused, and is designed to make all customers
happy, make them loyal, and encourage them to spend more
money with service providers.
The “digital natives”A new generation is emerging
10,000 hours of mobile phone use
250,000 emails,IM, and SMS
Source: Digital Natives Project (2007), Pew Internet & American ife Project (2007), Financial Times (September 20, 2006)
5,000 hours ofvideo game playing
3,500 hours of onlinesocial networking Sharing/
Blogging
Content creatorsand multi-taskers
Consantlyconnected
Technologicallyliterate
Different expectationsabout work and play
My Space/YouTube
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A completely new consumer experience
The evolution towards a more personalized TV experience has
already begun, as the uptake of on-demand services illustrates,
especially on cable where VOD has been available longest.
Driven by catch-up content (from broadcasters like the BBC and
Channel 4), 52 percent of TV customers at UK cable operator
Virgin Media are regularly using the on-demand service.[1] At
US cable operator Comcast, viewers have been watching 130
million hours of time-shifted content each month[2] while in
IPTV, the Verizon FiOS TV VOD library offers more than 11,000
titles per month, 70 percent of which are free.[3]
In mature on-demand markets, content owners (including
broadcasters) are warming to the concept of time-shifting,
thanks partly to the reports they receive on how consumers
interact with their content. Some are shunning the relative
simplicity of live, off-air ingest and recording mechanisms, and
instead pre-preparing their catch-up programs as if they were
VOD movies, so they can include promotional materials.
An increasing volume of television content is being made
available for managed network, time-shifted television. The
successful BBC iPlayer has been replicated on UK cable in
this way, and managed network catch-up now accounts for
approximately one-third of all BBC iPlayer views.[1]
IPTV operators like Orange in France and PCCW in Hong Kong
have illustrated the power of on-demand and have gone further
by delivering content across multiple platforms to multiple
screens. They are showing the way towards a personalized
TV experience but for telecoms operators there is much more
to come – including truly converged, blended television and
communications services.
IMS changes everything
The introduction of IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) to the
television environment represents a paradigm shift that will
enable completely new experiences not possible before.
The impact of IMS-enabled TV will grow dramatically over the
next few years.
IMS-TV delivers a number of compelling consumer propositions.
It enables people to access content that is stored inside their
home from any device and from any network outside the home,
or log into their personal profile for their IPTV service from any
network. It enables people to remotely control their TV services
via personal mobile devices, like setting program reminders and
scheduling recordings, or checking what people are watching
in the home.
With IMS-enabled TV, users can transfer TV sessions between
devices, including from a TV to a mobile device or from a mobile
device to the TV. Entertainment and communications can be
blended so that television includes presence and on-screen
Instant Messaging. Television subscribers can make use of a
convenient, presence-enabled address book.
Consumers can adopt separate user IDs within the home to
support the personalization of content and advertising they
receive. IMS-TV also enables open Internet and managed
network services to be delivered on the same devices.
Figure 2: Expanded capabilities of IMS
[1] Virgin Media press release, February 2009
[2] Comcast press release, March 2008
[3] Verizon press release, October 2008
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Connected consumers
The ultimate vision for telcos is an IPTV service that puts
each user at the center of their own entertainment universe,
connected to all the content and services they care about, and
all the people they care about, all the time. Consumers will have
always-on access to the IPTV platform regardless of device,
location or network. They will find services, and services will
find them.
We believe that in time, IPTV will come to be viewed as the
entertainment element of a unified home service that will
also include communications (wireless telephony, electronic
messaging, instant messaging, intercom, voice/video
conferencing) and security (in-home monitoring, intrusion
detection, remote video surveillance).
There will be home service applications provided and managed
by the network operator, including off-site storage, presence,
calendar synchronization, collaboration, and health services.
This long-term vision for IPTV is a completely new consumer
experience. It requires an understanding of how television will
operate in a wider context, and a new approach to building and
maintaining video delivery networks.
Above everything, it requires convergence. It needs IPTV
networks that are built upon open standards, where multiple
component parts are interoperable and where systems can
be swapped in and out with plug-and-play convenience. It
needs unified intelligence that tracks each consumer, their
requests and their consumption, wherever they are. It requires
all-encompassing management systems, including provisioning
and billing. And it cannot be achieved without content delivery
that is totally rationalized and cost-effective.
Ready for Personalized TV
Digital natives will be early adopters of personalized TV but history
tells us that new multimedia behaviors and expectations are
learnt within families and workplaces, and across generations.
For this reason, we expect all television providers to adapt
their networks and delivery technologies to deliver the Individual
TV Experience.
This includes cable and satellite operators as they evolve into
integrated service providers, with Voice over IP and mobility via
partnerships or their own networks.
However, we believe that telecom companies will lead the way
to personalized TV. This is partly because they are IP-centric,
partly because of their wireless heritage, but mainly because
they have the most to gain from change. As late entrants to
the Pay-TV market, IPTV operators need further service
differentiation to sustain continued growth. By pioneering
converged TV experiences, they can take a leadership position
and revolutionize triple-play services.
The road to personalized TV – what we call the Individual TV
Experience – begins with great television. Service providers who
want to embark on this journey need solutions partners who can
help them deliver best-in-class IPTV today and help build the
IPTV platform of tomorrow.
Building blocks for success
The technology and service enablers for a personalized,
cross-platform and converged television experience are now
available. TANDBERG Television and Ericsson provide many of
the key technologies and we work very effectively with third-party
vendors to develop and implement comprehensive solutions.
We provide the expertise needed to prepare networks, service
layers and services for a low-risk and cost-effective migration.
Our capabilities include:
• Video processing solutions that maximize picture quality
and minimize bit-rates (including SD and HDTV encoding
and turn-around). Ericsson and TANDBERG Television have
provided over one-third of the IPTV headends deployed
worldwide[4], thanks in part to our award-winning iPlex™
video processing platform. This combines high-density
encoding, transcoding and transrating and allows operators
to input virtually any video format and resolution and convert it
for nearly any consumer playout scenario.
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TANDBERG Television pioneered next-generation compression
(as we did MPEG-2) and we have progressively cut the bit-
rates needed for very high quality broadcast TV. We provide
the picture quality differentiation needed in a competitive
Pay-TV market, plus the multi-stream SD and HD that makes
multi-room TV and multi-channel PVR recording a reality.
• VOD and Time-Shift Television solutions that scale economically
to cope with more unicast video services, including
catch-up TV and network PVR. Our Emmy® award-winning
OpenStream® Digital Services Platform is powering some of
the largest on-demand catalogs on earth with operators who
really understand how to increase non-linear consumption.
• Comprehensive advertising solutions for linear, non-linear and
interactive TV, covering everything from local advert insertion
to targeted adverts and unified cross-platform campaign
management. Through our AdPoint® Advanced Advertising
Platform, we are preparing the ground for advertising models
that can exploit a more personalized TV environment and help
to pay for the introduction of advanced services.
• A Full Service Broadband Architecture that provides a
standards-based approach to converging fixed and mobile
networks. Because the transport layer is access agnostic
and independent of the service delivery capabilities in the
network, it costs less for our network customers to introduce
new access technologies and new services. Users can
access the network in a consistent way from wireless or wired
connections, ensuring economies of scale as operators deliver
cross-platform and converged services.
• Content management solutions designed to cope with
increasing volumes of on-demand content and television/
advertising delivered to multiple screens over multiple
networks.
• IPTV middleware supporting must-have television functionality
including nPVR, local PVR, multi-room and Picture-in-Picture
(PiP), over non-IMS or IMS-enabled networks. A PC Client
means consumers can enjoy a managed IPTV experience on
a PC, giving them more freedom about where they consume
content, and lets operators market a ‘try before you buy’
PC-based IPTV service or deploy IPTV without set-top boxes.
SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) rendering technology delivers
HD graphics, faster animations and faster response times for
the TV portal.
• The world’s first commercially available IPTV middleware
that is integrated with IMS, which can be deployed in a
traditional (non-IMS) network or in an IMS-based network.
This makes cross-platform services and blended television/
communications services affordable and scalable. It gives
operators the flexibility they need to create, trial and deploy
personalized TV experiences.
• The Ericsson Connected Home Gateway, which gives
consumers the freedom to access and interact with their
home multimedia devices, services and media, wherever they
are. The gateway also enables one single entry point for IPTV
and multimedia telephony services into the home.
Understanding convergence television
We offer a deep understanding of the business and networks
of telecoms, television and mobile. This is backed by years of
consulting, systems integration, network rollout and network
management on behalf of large customers. There is significant
and sustainable in-house expertise and innovation that will
ensure we continue to be one of the world’s wired and wireless
TV/communications solutions pioneers.
Our experience across all platforms means we are well placed
to build hybrid broadcast/IPTV solutions, whether it is satellite/
IP, cable/IP or terrestrial/IP. We understand television, mobile
and broadband in their own rights, and have a unique ability to
help operators deploy the technologies and business models
that make convergence-led television a reality.
[4] MRG, September 2008
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The road to the Individual TV Experience
As wired broadband delivery capabilities increase thanks to deep
fiber access based on VDSL2 or GPON, and mobile broadband
evolves, the true potential of fixed-mobile convergence will be
unleashed.
Mobility will be an important part of IPTV development. Mobile
broadband will have a telling effect on the whole multimedia
marketplace as HSPA Evolution delivers upwards of 21 Mbps
and LTE makes 150+ Mbps broadband possible over cellular
networks. By 2013, there will be well over three times as many
mobile broadband subscribers as fixed broadband (internal
Ericsson forecasts). Consider the potential for fixed/mobile
service convergence in this environment.
Research company IDC questioned 1,000 consumers aged
12-35 and 750 IT managers from the US, Italy, UK, Australia
and South Korea, and found that one-fifth would pay for
access to all multimedia content from any device, anywhere.
IDC’s independent Global Multimedia Report, published in
2008, predicted dramatic expansion of convergent multimedia
services through to 2011.
These services are access-agnostic, with a mobile and fixed
component offered by a single service provider over a converged
network infrastructure. IDC reckoned these were worth less
than USD 100 million in 2008 but said they will value nearly USD
3.5 billion by 2011.
Figure 3: Fixed mobile convergence
Network and services infrastructure
For IPTV providers who already offer best-in-class linear and
non-linear television, there are two immediate challenges.
First, develop network and services infrastructure that
are convergence-ready. Second, develop convergence-
focused consumer services that generate new revenues,
attract new subscribers and strengthen relationships with
existing customers.
Because television requires extremely high availability, high
capacity and high quality-of-service (low delay variation and
no bit-errors), IPTV puts completely new demands on the
broadband access and metro-Ethernet transport network.
In terms of network infrastructure, operators need high-
speed ubiquitous broadband via fixed and mobile, including
a standards-based Full Service Broadband network (with
Multi-Edge Access routers) to enable fixed-mobile convergence.
The network has to be able to manage issues such as:
End-user requirements Network impact
Quality of ExperienceRedundancy with fast convergence
and First mile Quality, FTTx
3-playQoS and traffic separation to
guarantee high priority services
Large channel selection Efficient multicast
More than one TV First mile capacity (VDSL2 or Fiber)
Personalized TV (nPVR, VOD, Time-Shift TV etc.)
Distributed cachingAccess (Check capacity at
session start, guarantee capacity during session)
HDTV First mile capacity, MPEG-4 AVC
Network impact of end-user requirements when delivering IPTV
To deliver a high quality, truly personalized television experience,
operators need a high degree of integration and management
control over the following areas:
• Traffic separation methods
• QoS
• IP address management
• RGW alternatives
• Resource Access Control System
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• Service Access Control
• Multicast control signaling
• Access nodes
• Metro Aggregation
• Edge node
• Metro and Core Transport
• Headend
• Hybrid DVB & IP architectures
• Security Aspects
• Microwave transport
• Unicast distribution
But perhaps the greater challenge is how network operators
manage their multitude of services within a unified architecture
and back office - an example of this being IMS-IPTV. To provide
the flexibility and adaptability to bring new services to market
quickly, we believe they must evolve a Service Orientated
Architecture that draws together applications, the Service
Delivery Platform, managed networks and the connected home.
And based upon these foundations, IPTV providers will be able
to deliver consumer experiences that truly differentiate them
from rivals.
The value of standards
Open standards like IMS and OIF (Open IPTV Forum)
conformance and those being created within the ATIS IPTV
Interoperability Forum (IIF) will be key enablers. These provide
the interoperability that will enable convergence-led service
innovations in a timely and cost-effective manner. We believe
IMS-based TV is the most suitable standards solution for IPTV
over managed networks and that IMS is a prerequisite to a truly
converged TV service.
With traditional TV middleware solutions, the middleware is
custom-made for a particular set of hardware and often adapted
for a particular customer (vertical solutions).
This means developing and launching additional applications for
IPTV services has been costly, if possible at all. Adding support
for multiple suppliers of different components (like set-top boxes
and video servers) has also been complex and it has not been
possible for third-parties to create add-on applications without
substantially modifying the operator’s IPTV network.
Until recently, IPTV has lacked a holistic approach to
standardization. There have been only limited attempts to enable
IPTV to exist as one application area in the wider context of an
operator’s business. Thus, all use case scenarios that involve
interaction with other operator subsystems require a specific
implementation to be integrated with a vertical IPTV solution.
Furthermore, this implementation is normally not reusable in
other use cases. IMS changes this.
IMS can be exploited to deliver communication enablers such
as presence, messaging, multimedia telephony and chat,
among other things. The implementation of standards IPTV
middleware enables the operator to think of IPTV as one service
among others.
As the IMS-based TV middleware resides in an access-
dependent network, users will be able to access the features on
a TV screen, a PC or a mobile device in a seamless way. This
requires that client devices evolve to a common standard to fit
the middleware, rather than the middleware being specifically
adapted to a selected set of end-user terminals.
Open standards are not just important for operators individually
– they will also play a crucial role in effecting the successful
implementation of IPTV services globally by providing the
industry with economies of scale. History proves that for network
operators, open standards mean more competition, sustained
competition, and lower prices. For consumers, standards are
always good news. That is why we are such strong supporters
of standardization efforts.
Figure 4: Importance of standards in terms of driving interoperability
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The Introduction of IMS-TV
TANDBERG Television and Ericsson started demonstrating real
examples of what IMS-enabled television looks like in 2008. We
have showed how an IPTV service can recognize the presence
of consumers and their friends across multiple devices (and
networks). We have also demonstrated how someone can
access music files stored on their home PC from their mobile
phone, using a combination of IMS and DLNA (Digital Living
Network Alliance) standards to instigate an upload/download
or QoS enabled streaming session for any multimedia content.
Thus users can access television, pictures, personal video, etc.
anytime, and virtually anywhere.
When IPTV middleware is pre-integrated with IMS it opens
the way to a number of service innovations with obvious
consumer appeal. One example is Broadcast Reminder, where
a consumer sets a program reminder and, if the television is off
when the reminder is due, the message is sent to their mobile
phone. Another is extended parental control, where children can
request permission from a guardian to watch a VOD movie that
is outside their age rating thanks to SMS messaging between a
set-top box and mobile phone.
These are real examples of IMS-enabled IPTV applications
that are possible today. These services meet the expectations
of an Individual TV Experience. They are also ‘out-of-the-box’
blended services, but if operators are using an IPTV middleware
with standardized technologies and interfaces, many more
applications like these can be built with relative ease.
Indeed, IPTV providers should consider the many applications
and services that have yet to be invented when considering the
value of standards. Our advice is to build platforms that, above
everything, are adaptable. Beyond the current generation of
VOD and television services, there really is no template for IPTV,
so it can be whatever operators want to make it – if their IPTV
solution gives them the freedom.
Eventually all content delivery will involve IP video and all major
Pay-TV providers will have bundled services. One day, everyone
will be fully two-way enabled and interactive. So at that point, it
will be new applications and the speed they can be deployed,
and the cost of delivering them, which will set operators apart
from their rivals.
IP will cease to become a differentiating factor between
competing access networks, but the way IP-centric networks
are built and the type of service delivery platforms used will
certainly make a difference to business prospects. The fact
is, not all personalized TV networks are going to be created
equal. Some will encourage continued innovation and others
will inhibit it.
Winning the battle for the Connected Home
Standards will drive down the cost of customer premise
equipment, promote innovation and help IPTV providers win
the battle for The Connected Home. Consumers want access
to multiple sources of content, including off the managed
IPTV network and the open Internet (including user-generated
content). They also want access to content in the home when
they are outside the home. This is not just possible; it is also
affordable, in a standards-driven environment.
The Ericsson Connected Home Gateway is compliant with
telecom and CE standards such as IMS, OIF and DLNA,
ensuring interoperability and ease-of-use between a wide range
of commercially available devices. The new range of enriched
services can therefore be launched quickly, without the expense
and inconvenience of developing specialized devices.
The Connected Home Gateway provides a secure connection
between a consumer’s digital home network and the telecoms
network, and a single point of entry for IPTV and communication
services, such as multimedia telephony. Consumers can then
use their mobile devices (like a laptop) to communicate directly
with their computer, TV or media player. This allows them to
access their media libraries while on the move. They could share
photos and videos with their family and friends, for example.
In this environment, service providers can deliver Web-sourced
multimedia content and video from the managed network as
complementary services, to multiple screens in the home.
Operators should aim to offer their customers managed TV
services on the PC (via a PC IPTV client) and open Internet
services, like user-generated content, on the television set.
After all, the future of IPTV is about giving consumers what
they want. If managed network operators do not do this, digital
natives (and increasing numbers of digital immigrants) will go
elsewhere. By harnessing over-the-top content, operators can
maintain the physical and commercial relationship with their
end-user whatever they are watching. And as the company
that gives consumers the multimedia freedom they crave, IPTV
operators are providing a value-added function that they can
seek to monetize.
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Figure 5: Any service, anywhere, on any device
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New services supported by advertising
One way to monetize the new services made available as part
of the Individual TV Experience is advertising. Indeed, operators
should look now at how their advertising model can evolve in
parallel to the introduction of personalized, cross-platform and
blended service experiences. Advertising can and should be
built into the Return on Investment calculations.
Consumers have a limited budget and will only commit a
certain amount of their money to subscriptions so the more
new, innovative services an operator adds, the more they are
likely to need advertising support. On the other hand, the more
personalized and interactive the television model becomes, the
more relevant television becomes to advertisers again.
Television must face up to the continued threat of Internet
advertising and any television strategy must deliver Web-type
capabilities including contextual advertising.
To guarantee their position as an attractive vehicle for advertisers,
IPTV operators must demonstrate some key attributes. These
include a sufficiently large number of viewers, the ability to reach
the desired target audience, the ability to accurately report on
audience appreciation, and the opportunity to orchestrate a
cross-media campaign as a single, unified program.
Telcos need to prepare the ground for advertising models that
can exploit a more unicast environment, with support for VOD
advertisement placements, telescoping adverts and targeted
advertising, as well as local and linear advertising.
In the on-demand environment, adverts could be changed
according to the time of day, day of the week or season of
the year. Ultimately, commercials can be dynamically reviewed
according to who is watching the time-shift session, where they
live and what their interests are.
Service providers have to manage the complex asset
management for the video and its accompanying ads. They
need to control advertising campaigns and report their results.
Unified, cross-platform advertising
Telcos should seek to exploit their growing audiences across
different platforms and deliver relevant adverts to a customer
through any service or application they are using. This can
be supported by unified advertising management for all IPTV
services over all platforms. It should include ad orchestration,
which enables synchronized cross-media advertising campaigns
and provides a way to connect the media buyer’s ad inventory
to its target delivery platform.
With a unified cross-media advertising solution, television
providers can target selected groups of users over one or
more delivery platforms. We have dubbed this concept ‘the
Virtual Channel®’ because it treats the placement of advertising
messages as if it is a single entity, regardless of product, network
or device.
By addressing different micro-markets as a single entity, the
advertiser is offered a combined macro-market of substantial
size that will be complementary to other conventional forms
of advertising. Telcos can also give advertisers a range of
addressable demographic (or otherwise) targeted groups as a
single virtual channel, regardless of device, and enable them to
run a cross-platform media campaign as a single contract.
When combined with the ability to achieve individual household
fulfillment, and instantaneous measurement of consumption,
this amounts to a compelling case for a new age of television
advertising.
“In the future, individuals are going to get content by doing
a transaction; they will sell their personal attention for 20
seconds to an advertisement, in return they will get a piece
of free content. To have advertising targeted specifically at
individuals is revolutionary and could make advertising in the
future enormously more effective than it has ever been in the
past, and more significant financially too”.
When an IPTV operator delivers personalized TV experiences with
relevant advertising that reaches target audiences wherever they
are, they will be rewarded with a share in advertising revenues.
One of the many changes we expect in the next few years is
the development of new partnerships and business models
between the operator, content and advertising communities.
(Peter Bazelgette, ex-Endemol UK and Creative Director of Endemol Group worldwide)
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Managing more content on more platforms
Continued growth in on-demand content, increased interest
in multi-device video services, and the need for cross-
media advertising all means that a new approach to content
management is required. Operators will need more sophisticated
content management systems (CMS) that can handle content
(including advertising) assets in multiple formats and with
accompanying metadata and content rights.
In a personalized TV environment, content is still king, but the
king wears many different robes. So another building block for
the Individual TV Experience is a CMS that provides a single,
scalable solution for all platforms. It should have a centralized
metadata and content library to allow for the management of
any metadata format and any content type.
Content management solutions should give operators
exceptional visibility of the content that enters their library,
throughout the content lifecycle. They should also ensure
operational efficiency through the automation of customized
content processing via rules management.
Such a solution will enable the expansion of on-demand assets
and cross-platform delivery without an accompanying increase
in errors and operational costs. It will decrease per-title content
processing costs, enabling more efficient management of the
large content libraries that are an integral part of the personalized
TV future.
A next-generation CMS will accelerate VOD business
opportunities over any distribution platform (including expansion
from TV to mobile and broadband). This includes control of
promotion, placement and pricing.
Operators cannot afford to ignore the Individual TV Experience
so they must not allow content management concerns to stand
in the way. This is one more hurdle in the race to become
the most innovative and sought-after television experience
provider. Next-generation Content Management Systems will
keep you moving.
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More complexity – but more help
Because so many of the services and applications of tomorrow
rely on cross-platform and cross-service convergence, it is
important that operators build openness and standardization
into their networks and service layers now. In a competitive
marketplace, they may only have one chance to get this right.
Creating the next-generation TV experience is not something
an operator has to do every day but at TANDBERG Television
and Ericsson, we do spend every day figuring out the best
ways to combine fixed-mobile convergence, video processing,
VOD/Time-Shift TV, advertising, content management, IPTV
middleware, IMS-TV and residential gateways, and plenty
more too. Our expertise, as well as our products, is what
makes us different.
The Individual TV Experience is totally achievable but it requires
a combination of skills taken from the world of telecoms and
television. It needs the ability to build hybrid broadcast/IP
networks. It needs vendors whose experience reaches wider
than television, and further than mobile, and beyond the limits of
fixed-line broadband.
To exploit this convergence opportunity, vendors need a deep-
rooted knowledge of how to build revenue-generating services
across multiple networks. They need systems integration
excellence in each segment and - crucially - an umbrella
understanding of how they fit together to create the consumer
experience of the future. This is what we are referring to when
we talk about a ‘Prime Integrator’.
We are exactly this kind of partner. We have a heritage of
delivering best-in-class video across multiple platforms to
multiple screens. That includes IPTV, satellite, cable, digital
terrestrial (DTT) and mobile, and covers the content contribution,
acquisition, turn-around, distribution and transmission functions
of video delivery. Our experience across all platforms means we
are well placed to build hybrid DVB/IP solutions.
We deliver optimized IPTV network infrastructure, including a
full range of access, optical transport, edge routing and IMS
systems. We offer authentication, roaming and policy control
for mobility, and the foundations for integrating wireless and
wireline packet based access networks.
We provide consultancy, business transformation and project
management. Ericsson’s consulting organization can guide
customers through the key decisions and implementations
needed to achieve ongoing business success, covering
operational consulting, strategy consulting and technology
consulting services. We can manage and even host networks
for customers and deliver service management, revenue
management and business management.
Local Service Delivery
Global Service Delivery
Figure 6: One global service delivery organization with over 24,000 employees worldwide
15
The proof
The Ericsson group has over 2000 broadcaster, network
operator, content owner and programmer customers around
the world. We have deployed more than 240 headends with
over 15,000 IPTV channels. Fifteen of the top 20 IPTV providers,
and 200 in total, use Ericsson solutions for television (where two
or more Ericsson solutions are used, e.g., Redback Networks
and TANDBERG Television).
Ericsson transport solutions are used by Chunghwa Telecom,
Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom and Belgacom. Six of the ten
largest IPTV deployments use Ericsson IP for multi-access
edge solutions including Chunghwa Telecom, Korea Telecom,
PCCW, Neuf Cegetel and China Telecom. Four Tier-1 telcos use
Ericsson GPON/VDSL2 for wireline access including AT&T and
Deutsche Telekom.
Eighty five percent of US cable operators use our Emmy®
award-winning VOD back office. We have delivered more
than 100 fixed broadband access networks and more than 60
end-to-end mobile TV services (48 of them use Ericsson access).
Mobile TV deals include Siminn in Iceland, Telefónica in Spain,
Celcom in Malaysia, and Cellcom in Israel.
Our capacity to act as Prime Integrator is witnessed by OTE
SA (delivery and management of IPTV), Cingular (nationwide
merger of networks and migration to WCDMA and HSDPA,
etc.), Sprint (multi-vendor IMS) and Telecom Italia (fixed/mobile
convergence, IMS, OSS, multimedia services, etc.)
As an international group with 29,000 employees in services,
operating in 140 countries and with a portfolio of over 20,000
patents, we have the resources to help shape the IPTV of
tomorrow as well as today. No other company is better placed
to deliver the convergence-driven scenarios that consumers are
now demanding. In short, we provide the know-how to make
the Individual TV Experience a reality.
Global Headquarters Americas
TANDBERG Television, Inc.
4500 River Green Parkway
Duluth, GA 30096
USA
Tel: +1 678 812 6300
Fax: +1 678 812 6400
EMEA Headquarters
TANDBERG Television Ltd
Strategic Park
Comines Way
Hedge End
Southampton
SO30 4DA
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 23 8048 4000
Fax: +44 (0) 23 8048 4003
Asia Pacific Headquarters
TANDBERG Television
Suite 1101-8, 11th Floor
Nan Fung Tower
173 Des Voeux Road Central
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2899 7000
Fax: +852 2899 7100
www.tandbergtv.com/vision