Category: Technology

MUMBAI: Consulting and outsourcing group Accenture said it has acquired the software and skills of Nokia Siemens Networks Internet Protocol television (IPTV) business. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The newly-acquired IPTV software, assets and capabilities will be integrated with the Accenture Video Solution – a software product and a suite of services that enables companies to launch new over-the-top TV and services quickly and economically while reducing the initial costs of IT and infrastructure set-up – to create the industry’s most comprehensive, feature-rich video software and services platform currently available for video service providers and their subscribers.

The acquisition adds key IPTV skills and experience to Accenture’s existing over-the-top video capabilities, enabling Accenture to provide end-to-end technology integration services to any vendor for any video platform. Accenture will be able to help clients provide end users with a dynamic and interactive video experience with virtually any video content, in any format, across every network, on any device – from smart phones and tablets to personal computers and television sets.

Additionally, Accenture’s enhanced broadband video services – with a platform that manages seamless integration of devices – will give end users the ability to control their viewing experience, such as accessing content through a tablet, pausing whatever they may be watching and continuing to view that content at a later time – at home on a TV, a laptop computer, smart phone, or tablet.

“The combination of Nokia Siemens Networks’ IPTV assets with Accenture’s over-the-top TV software and capabilities, will deliver an exciting new combination of services to the global video industry,” said Accenture’s Media & Entertainment industry group MD Marco Vernocchi. “The scalable and flexible end solution we are creating will help video service providers dramatically change the way they approach content distribution while balancing costs.”

“Consumers want to control the content they view, but they also want to manage where and when they view that content,” said Vernocchi. “They also want to be able to choose the device on which the content is delivered. Consumers also want the flexibility to watch a video while posting comments on social media sites or chatting with their friends about the content they are viewing. Access to content in a personalized way is here to stay, and we can expect to see even more features that allow users to make viewing a personal, mobile, dynamic video experience.”

MUMBAI: Cable TV digitisation in two of the four metros singled out for rollout by 31 October could face stormy political opposition. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, recently withdrawing support from the Congress-led UPA government, has begun to roar against forcible introduction of digital set-top boxes (STBs) for any kind of TV viewing which she believes will hurt the poor.

Speaking at a rally in New Delhi, Banerjee said: “Our poor people will be ruined. They should have evolved some mechanism for this. What was the need for this decision for making mandatory the use of STBs?”

Banerjee was holding her first public rally in the national capital opposing the government‘s policies, including FDI (foreign direct investment) in retail.

Poor cable operators will be ruined. They will lose business. It will hurt the common man. How he will pay for STBs? Don‘t they (government) want the poor people to watch cable TV and have some entertainment?” she questioned.
Making a veiled reference to the recent hike in FDI in the media sector, Banerjee also said that the government was favouring private media companies.

“They have looted the country in seven days. If they are allowed, they will give information and broadcasting also to one private party,” Banerjee said.

Ironically, Trinamool leader CM Jatua was a Minister of State in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry before the party withdraw its support from the UPA government.

The West Bengal CM could find a supporter in Jayalalithaa, the CM of Tamil Nadu. The state-owned Arasu Cable is not yet prepared to implement digital cable in Chennai by 31 October.

However, Minister for Information & Broadcasting Ambika Soni has ruled out extension of the sunset date for switching off analogue for cable television beyond 31 October.

According to MIB, the digitisation percentage in four metro cities has gone up to 73 per cent from 68 per cent. A claim that has been disputed by cable operators from Kolkata and Chennai who believe that the percentage is lower than what the government claims.

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (Tdsat) has directed public broadcaster Prasar Bharati to submit a bank guarantee to sports broadcaster ESPN Software over a payment dispute with regards to live broadcast of nationally important cricket matches on Doordarshan.

In its interim order, Tdsat has, however, prevented ESPN from encashing the guarantee without the its permission.

Prasar Bharati has contested a demand by ESPN for payment of its share of advertisement revenue for matches carried live simultaneously on Doordarshan on grounds of violations of the provisions of the Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharati) Act, 2007.

The sports broadcaster, which runs ESPN, Star Sports and Star Cricket channels, has challenged Prasar Bharati‘s refusal to share the revenue, based on which the Tdsat has asked Prasar Bharati to provide a bank guarantee.
Prasar Bharati is required to share 75 per cent of the advertisement revenue from live cricket matches telecast by it and the rights for which are held by another broadcaster under the Act.

Tdsat chairman S B Sinha and member P K Rastogi have also decided to hear the ESPN-Prasar Bharati case on a expeditious basis.

The tribunal said: “Indisputably in terms of the provisions of the Act and the Rules, the respondent in the fact of the present case (Prasar Bharati) is to share 75 per cent of its bid amount, which amounts to Rs 200 million, with the petitioner ESPN, wherefore it has to furnish a bank guarantee.”

The Tdsat order is, however, not clear on the tournament or matches for which Prasar Bharati has declined to share its advertising revenue with ESPN.

K Parasaran, Additional Solicitor General appearing for Prasar Bharati, told Tdsat that the petitioner (ESPN) and/or the International Cricket Council (ICC) have violated the spirit of the provisions of the Act and the Rules framed there-under in so far as ICC continues to give its advertisements and its logo which is violative of the underlying spirit of the Act. He pointed out that Rule 3 was clear that “the revenue would not be shared for the revenues that the rights holders – in this case ESPN or ICC – make out of.”

The Section 3 of the Act provides that no content rights owner or holder and no television or radio broadcasting service provider shall carry a live television broadcast on any cable or direct-to-home (DTH) network or radio commentary broadcast in India of sporting events of national importance, unless it simultaneously shares the live broadcasting signal, without its ads, with Prasar Bharati to enable them to re-transmit the same on its terrestrial and DTH networks in such manner and on such terms and conditions as may be specified.

Prasar Bharati has objected to ICC continuing to give its advertisements and its logo in the live feed passed on to Doordarshan for re-transmission, which the public broadcaster says is in violation of the provision of of the act. The act requires that the content rights owner or holder should provide advertisement-free broadcasting signal to the public broadcaster but the provision has been violated with the delivery of ICC advertisements and logo along with the feed for the live cricketing event.

The section also provides that the advertisement revenue sharing between the content rights owner or holder and Prasar Bharati shall be in the ratio of not less than 75: 25 in case of television coverage and 50: 50 in case of radio coverage.

Rule 4 of the rules framed under the act provide that the party getting the marketing rights shall give a bank guarantee to the other party for an amount equal to the other party’s share of guaranteed revenue which shall be valid for a period of six months from the first day of the month succeeding the month in which the sporting event comes to an end.

MUMBAI: Hungama.com has launched their on demand Bollywood movies service, Hungama Movies, in UAE and the Middle East.

Hungama Movies will be officially launched in the Middle East at the Intel booth at the Gitex Technology Week 2012. It has a library of Bollywood and Indian movies, available in both HD and SD formats.

Hungama consumer business and allied services COO Siddhartha Roy said, “There is a very large South Asian community in UAE and the Middle East, who demands a quality service that caters to their need to consume Bollywood and Indian content, and with Hungama.com we hope to satiate this need- for both Music and Movies.”

“In addition to the United Arab Emirates, we also plan to enter Singapore market in 3 weeks,” he added.

Hungama Movies’ entry into the international arena will offer a catalogue of over 5,000 Bollywood and Indian regional cinema to the NRI and South Asian community in UAE and the rest of the Middle East.

The movies-on-demand storefront will offer premium HD and SD movies for a monthly subscription starting at AED 6.99.

As an introductory offer, the Hungama Movies service will be offered free for one month to all consumers who buy the Notebook or Ultrabook powered by the 2nd Generation Intel Core Processor and 3rd Generation Intel Core Processor at the Intel booth at Gitex Technology Week 2012.

MUMBAI: Leading satellite operator SES has said its new Astra 2F satellite has been successfully launched on 28 September, on board an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana. This is SES‘ 36th successful launch on Ariane.

Astra 2F was built by Astrium in Toulouse using a Eurostar E3000 platform and carries Ku- and Ka-band payloads for the delivery of high-performance Direct-to-Home (DTH) and next generation broadband services. It is the first of a three satellite investment programme (Astra 2E, 2F and 2G), that provides replacement and growth capacity for the UK and Ireland at the 28.2/28.5 degrees East neighbourhood.

The new satellites in this neighbourhood will, as of October 2013, also use additional frequency spectrum for which the right of use was granted to SES by Media Broadcast pursuant to an agreement entered into in 2005. The new Astra 2F spacecraft also provides Ku-band capacity for pan-European services and for Sub-Saharan Africa. Its Ka-band payload will allow SES Broadband Services to support download speeds of up to 20 Mps.

“The successful launch of Astra 2F is part of our fleet replacement and expansion programme,” said SES CEO Romain Bausch. “Astra 2F will provide seamless replacement capacity for our UK customers like BSkyB, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, and will allow us to operate additional capacity at 28.2/28.5 degrees East on SES satellites. This orbital neighbourhood today serves close to 13 million DTH homes in the UK and Ireland. We would like to thank our long-standing partners Astrium and Arianespace for this mission success.”

Astra 2F had a launch mass of 6 tons, generates 13 kW of power, and has a design life of 15 years. It is the fifth Eurostar satellite in the SES fleet. The new spacecraft will be brought into commercial service in the next few weeks following the completion of the extensive in-orbit testing programme.

MUMBAI: TV search and EPG company What‘s-On-India has expanded its operations by venturing in the Middle East market with the launch of subsidiary company What‘s-On-Arabia.

To be based in Amman (Jordan), the company was formed through the acquisition of a local EPG company. It also plans to set up another office in Dubai, UAE.

What‘s-On-Arabia, which already has four Middle East contracts under its belt, will be headed by country manager Hiba Dajani.

The Middle East TV industry has seen a rapid movement into digitalization, paving the way for increase in channels and content as well as proliferation of digital TV technologies.

What‘s-On-India CFO Ajit Joshi said, “These factors are ideal catalysts for a very specialist TV Search offering that What‘s-On-India can bring in given its expertise in this arena.”

Through this expansion What‘s-On-India now offers EPGs for India, Sri Lanka and the Middle East for more than a thousand TV channels.

The localization of that TV Search is also undergoing an expansion with a multi-lingual offering of English as the base language but translated EPGs for Hindi, Arabic, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi.

MUMBAI: GETIT Infoservices, India‘s leading digital marketing company has entered into an association with Google India as a Premier SME partner. As part of this partnership GETIT will cater to the strong demand for digital advertising from small and medium sized businesses and market Google AdWords product; it will develop, launch and manage digital campaigns for small and medium businesses.

The Google – GETIT partnership entails the latter providing end-to-end sales and marketing solutions, as well complete implementation of digital campaigns. GETIT‘s key contribution in this business partnership is to provide extensive pan-India reach with its strong field force of more than 1,000 people across the country. The association will enable Google to attract more Indian SMEs online and help promote their businesses and provide them leads through Google‘s AdWords product.

Commenting on the association, GETIT Infoservices CEO Sidharth Gupta said, “For Getit, the last few years have been really exciting as we have transformed ourselves to a digital company, and this partnership with Google comes at a relevant time. We have 1,000s of SME customers across India, and we will bring to them the advantages of Google‘s products. In the Indian context SMEs prefer being served face-to-face, and we work closely with SMEs to bring them the best benefits of Google AdWords products, in addition to other GETIT bundles.”
 
Speaking on the occasion, Google India Head – Channel Sales Kartik Taneja said, “We‘re pleased to announce GETIT as our Premier SME partner in India. With GETIT reach in 80 cities and strong presence in the SME space, we‘re confident that together we will be able to offer our services to SMEs and help them gain from the benefits of Internet advertising.”

As per SME Chambers of India, SMEs in India contribute 45 per cent to the industrial output and 40 per cent to exports. They also employ 60 million people and create 1.3 million jobs every year. Clearly they form the backbone of the boom in Indian economy.

BENGALURU: In the first critical orbit-raising manoeuvre conducted on 30 September morning, the perigee (nearest point to Earth) of GSAT-10 satellite has successfully been raised from 250 km to 16,427 km by using the satellite’s on-board propulsion system.

Besides, the inclination of GSAT-10 with respect to the equatorial plane has also been brought down to 1.7 deg from the earlier 5.998 deg. In this operation, the Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) was fired for duration of 1 hour 55 minutes. In the process, about 362 kg propellant was utilised.

This orbit raising operation began at 0428 hrs IST by commanding the satellite from ISRO’s Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan, Karnataka. GSAT-10 is in good health. The current orbital parameters of GSAT-10 are:

It may be recalled that GSAT-10 satellite was launched on 29 September on-board Ariane-5 launch vehicle from Kourou, French Guyana.

The Second orbit-raising manoeuvre is planned in the afternoon of 1 October.

NEW DELHI: Ruling out extension of the sunset date for switching off analogue for cable television beyond 31 October, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni has admitted that Delhi was lagging behind in this process.

Soni met Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and asked her to ensure that all households having cable TV connections install digital set-top box (STB) before the deadline.

“Only 70 per cent people in Delhi have installed the digital device while in Mumbai 90 per cent people have installed it. The percentage for Kolkata is 77 and for Chennai it is around 70,” she said.

The Minister said though Delhi was lagging behind, she was confident that 100 per cent household would install the digital STBs by 31 October as Dikshit had assured full implementation.

Resolving to implement the “major reform initiative”, Soni said the deadline for installation of STBs in the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai is not going to be extended any further. The I&B Ministry had extended the earlier deadline of 30 June to 31 October following what it termed as demand by cable operators.

“Through digitisation, people will be able to access internet connection, phone connection and even be able to watch TV on mobile. It is a major reform initiative in the (television and broadcasting) sector,” she said.

Dikshit, asked about Delhi lagging behind other metros in installation of STBs, said the state government would soon launch a campaign to make people aware about the issue. “Delhi will not hesitate to implement it. I think it is a step forward towards modernisation. People in Delhi will install the device by 31 October. I have assured it to the Minister,” she said.

However, the Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI) said the earlier extension had been done by the government itself because of lack of STBs. COFI President Roop Sharma also told indiantelevision.com that the figure of 70 per cent was lower than the government‘s own earlier figure, and this showed there had been no under-declaration as claimed by some broadcasters.

Organisations of cable operators in Kolkata and Chennai have denied the latest claims. The Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation held its first meeting with cable operators on 27 September for installing headends.

The Cable and Broadband Operators Welfare Association of Kolkata recently said that “we can not understand how the penetration percentage of STB has jumped up from 20.67 per cent in the month of June 2012 (as stated by I and B Joint Secretary Supriya Sahu) to 67 per cent in the middle of September in Kolkata. The fact behind poor STB penetration is non-availability of STBs at a few MSOs of Kolkata even at this juncture”.

NEW DELHI: The Department of Telecom has been asked to issue detailed guidelines by 12 October to bring into force a decision to totally waive spectrum fee for community radio services.

Instructions to this effect have been issued by the Communications & IT Minister Kapil Sibal, following requests received from National Advisory Council, Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry, and the Community Radio Association.

Sibal said the Government‘s role is to create an enabling environment for CRS, and he wanted guidelines to ensure that the spectrum is optimally used and the channels use these airwaves only to inform and empower the common man.

It was felt that in the interest of inclusive and informed society, it is apt that Government provides the spectrum (airwaves) for CRS at zero cost. Although this may result in an opportunity cost of around Rs. 2.5 million to the Government, the cost is far outweighed by the benefit of informed, empowered and inclusive local communities and the nation.

The move to waive spectrum and royalty fee on community radio stations has come as a major relief for a sector that was just beginning to find its feet, with just 132 stations operational out of the 370 licenses issued by the Government.

Sustainability is the biggest challenge for CRS. Community radio focuses on low cost and low return pattern of operations. Donor funding is crucial for CRS. As most of the donors come from local communities, this financing option is inadequate and irregular for CRS operating in remote areas and for the marginalised sections of the society.

The move would help educational institutes, non-government organisations, small communities and gram panchayats – many of which had received licences but had not been able to commence operations in view of the high spectrum fee.

The government had earlier this year said it was planning to raise the spectrum fee for these stations from Rs 19,000 to Rs 93,000.

The Wireless Planning & Coordination (WPC) wing of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology had for last nine months stopped giving clearance, leading to 166 new applicants awaiting clearance.