Record numbers of households across the Middle East and Africa are signing up for pay TV, according to new research from Informa Telecoms & Media.
In 2000 there were just over 2.5 million pay TV subscribers across the MENA region. By the end of last year that total had more than trebled to 9.2 million and Informa’s research shows it is heading for 9.6 million by the end of 2011 and will pass the 10 million mark next year.
We speak to Khulud Abu. Homos, SVP Programming at Dubai-based satellite TV operator OSN.
When Netflix decided to separate DVD delivery from its video streaming service, consumers rebelled. Many dropped both services and the company lost half its value on Wall Street. Trouble like this is commonplace for cable TV and satellite providers, which, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), both consistently rank low in customer satisfaction surveys.
Dr. Saad Al Khatani, Group CSO of Saudi Telecom Company (STC), believes smart pipes are the only way to effectively offset the high set-up and running costs of modern broadband networks, and maintain Quality of Service to the customer as new applications and services are added.
Mobile network operators will not be able to roll out 4G LTE services until 2013 at the earliest, due to technical issues, according to UK regulatory body Ofcom, rendering speculation about whether the spectrum auction will be delayed as irrelevant.
Around 94 per cent of UK households will have a TV set capable of receiving high-definition (HD) programming by 2016, according to the latest forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media. This compares favorably with the worldwide average of 48 per cent and puts the UK third globally, behind Canada and New Zealand (each with 95 per cent).
Bangladeshi broadcaster Maasranga, part of local conglomerate the Square Group, is upgrading its network to launch the first fully IP-based digital, HD and 3G-enabled rich media network in the country.
NBN Co, the firm mandated by the Australian government to design, build and operate the country’s new fibre-based broadband network, has confirmed that it will offer multicast capabilities to service providers using the network that wish to deliver television services to their end-customers.
Irish operator Eircom Group has announced that it plans to “significantly” upgrade Ireland’s telecoms infrastructure by rolling out fibre-based access technologies across the country, before launching IPTV over the new infrastructure in mid-2012.
Telecoms and pay TV operators will increasingly need to add new services such as Spotify and YouView to their bundles to keep existing subscribers and attract new ones. Although the simple packaging of telecoms and media products at a discounted rate might not seem like the most innovative strategy, it has proved to be the most powerful one as customers place more value on price, simplicity and convenience.
A consortium of companies led by Microsoft and including Nokia, the BBC, BSkyB and Samsung, has begun a test program in Cambridge, England to discover if un-required TV spectrum could be reused to create so called “super Wi-Fi hotspots.” These would provide internet coverage to provide offload for areas where there is too much data traffic, or for those where there is no broadband at all.
Although 3D TV has major support from leading UK service providers like Sky and Virgin, it is not expected to be an instant success. Statistics released this week forecast that less than half of the 11 million 3D TV-ready homes in the UK by 2016 will be active users of the technology.
The idea of the connected home is becoming synonymous with multiroom IP video services, perhaps the hardest service to deliver to the home. IP video not only has high bandwidth requirements and is very time-sensitive, requiring low latency. And beyond technological demands, the difficulty in acquiring multiscreen rights has already threatened to derail TV Everywhere services in many markets.
Yahoo has acquired TV tagging start-up IntoNow in a deal reported to be worth between $20-30m. The purchase is expected to bolster the firm’s video and social content offerings. IntoNow, which only launched at the end of January this year, has developed a free iPhone application that allows users to share instantly the programmes they are watching with Facebook and Twitter friends as well as iTunes and Netflix. The expectation is that an Android version of the application will now be developed.
Walking the floor at last year’s IP&TV World Forum I was struck by the general air of despondency amongst IPTV companies. There were some serious doubts being expressed about basic rudiments such as business models and standards. At the heart of this diffidence was the 3 letter acronym – OTT. Many were still trying to get a handle on what, precisely, the rise of OTT meant for them.
Fast forward a year and at this year’s Forum there was a much greater air of confidence amongst those I talked to in the managed IPTV sector.
Resurgent handset vendor Motorola Mobility this week signed an agreement to acquire Swedish IPTV software provider Dreampark for an undisclosed sum.
Conventional wisdom runs that Eastern Europe already has a surfeit of direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV operators. But recent launches show there are yet more players willing to enter the market and, at least in certain markets, there is still some room for growth in subscriber numbers.
Over the top TV viewers will outnumber those watching managed IPTV services from traditional providers by 2015, according to numbers released by Informa Telecoms & Media this week.
The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) has tapped up TeliaSonera subsidiary NetCom as its supplier of voce and mobile broadband services, demonstrating some of the application potential for LTE.
Informa’s chief research officer, Mark Newman, and analyst Dario Talmesio discuss rich communications suite (RCS) capabilities and the slow development of the initiative as well as the G5 alliance and carrier billing.
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