Category: Technology

MUMBAI: Arsenal Football Club and Airtel Africa, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, have signed a three-year partnership which will provide the telco with opportunity to utilise the cub‘s merchandising, hospitality and content rights in five markets: Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana, Uganda and Rwanda.

Airtel customers in these markets will have the opportunity to win match tickets to watch this summer‘s pre-season tour fixture and receive exclusive club content and news direct to handsets.
 
The 2012 visit will feature a game between the Arsenal first-team and the Nigerian National Team the Super Eagles on 5 August.

Airtel is in the process of finalising arrangements that will give selected consumers in the five countries a chance to watch the match and interact with the team in Abuja.

In addition to the agreement, Airtel will be designated as the official mobile operator of the 2012 Arsenal Tour to Nigeria.
 
Arsenal will also support the Airtel Rising Stars football programme, an annual grassroots training initiative that offers young boys and girls the opportunity to play football and compete in a safe environment.

Airtel donates money for each goal scored at the tournament to support the players‘ education to ensure those involved don‘t only get best-in-class sports training and opportunities, but also have better opportunities to further their academic studies.

The Gunners will provide Uefa-trained coaches to assist with training in each of the five markets and at an Arsenal Coaching Clinic for up to 50 footballers in London.
 

MUMBAI: Hurt by forex losses and a rise in operating costs, India’s leading direct-to-home (DTH) operators have decided to up prices of their channel packs and set-top boxes (STBs).

Dish TV has from July increased the price of its channel packs by Rs 20 across the board while new consumers will have to cough out Rs 200 per STB. The base pack will now come at Rs 200 while STBs will cost Rs 1,790 from Rs 1,590 charged earlier. The last price revision in the base pack was in November 2011.

Tata Sky is in agreement with Dish TV’s decision. “We will also match what others do in the marketplace. Prices had dropped by 30 per cent over the last one year and any increase is only going to be partial recovery of it at a time when the rupee has weakened against the dollar, softening from Rs 46 to Rs 56 against the US currency. It doesn’t make business sense to add more subsidies and surmount our losses,” Tata Sky MD Harit Nagpal tells Indiantelevision.com.

Tata Sky had dropped its base pack price last year from Rs 240 to Rs 180 amid stiff competition from the other DTH operators.

Airtel digital TV is also expected to follow suit. However, Bharti Airtel CEO of DTH/ Media Shashi Arora did not want to comment on the issue.

The route Videocon would take could not be confirmed as its CEO Anil Khera was not available for comment. Videocon d2h, which manufactures its STBs, plays the volume game and has the fastest growth in incremental subscribers.

Sun Direct, the Sun Group DTH company, will have less of competitive pressure to hike prices as the tendency (like Dish TV) is to leave the South India packs untouched. The south market is very price sensitive and Sun has based its rapid subscriber growth on low ARPUs.

The move by DTH operators comes at a time when the sector is facing slow volume growth compared to the last few years of explosive subscriber expansion. In FY‘12 the sector is estimated to have mopped up 9.5 million, down from 12 million in the previous year. Industry estimates peg the DTH sector to add up less than 9 million subscribers this fiscal.

“The time has come for the industry to balance between volumes and price points. We were waiting for the rupee to appreciate but there are no signs of it yet. The cost of STBs has been affected by 17-18 per cent,” says a Dish TV official.

Dish TV reported foreign exchange loss of Rs 510 million in FY‘12. In fact, the company had forex losses for the last three quarters of the previous fiscal. Dish TV will announce its first-quarter fiscal results on 19 July and the forex losses are expected to stay. The other DTH companies are not listed but all have suffered due to the softening of the Indian currency.

DTH companies who take a price increase run the risk of a higher churn rate. Dish TV has a churn rate of 1.1 per cent per month. “We will try to arrest the churn rate by adding more channels in the pack,” says the official.

There may be a marginal rise in ARPUs (average revenue per user) as consumers will have to pay more for their packages. Market estimates expect the ARPUs to go up by Rs 3-4 per subscriber. Dish TV’s ARPU for FY’12 stood at Rs 152 (exit quarter ARPU in the fiscal was lower at Rs 151).

“The primary aim, however, is not to increase revenue but to lower costs,” avers Nagpal.

MUMBAI: The internet giant Google has announced closure of few of its products including -iGoogle, Google Mini, Google Talk Chatback, Google video, and Symbian Search App.

The search engine company had started a “spring clean” last year, and since then it has closed or combined more than 30 products.

The personalised Google page, iGoogle, will cease from 1 November 2013. “We originally launched iGoogle in 2005 before anyone could fully imagine the ways that today‘s web and mobile apps would put personalised, real-time information at your fingertips,” Google‘s official blog read.

The company feels that with modern apps running on platforms like Chrome and Android, the need for iGoogle has eroded over time, so it is winding it down. The users will have 16 months to adjust or export their data.

Google Mini, which was also introduced in 2005, had a good run, but beginning 31 July the product will be discontinued because its functionality can be better provided by products like Google Search Appliance, Google Site Search and Google Commerce Search. “We will of course continue to provide technical support to Mini customers for the duration of their contracts, and will reach out to them shortly with more details,” the company said.

Google Talk Chatback allowed websites to embed a Google Talk widget so that they could engage with their visitors. Google feels that it is now outdated and hence it is turning off Chatback and encouraging websites to use the Meebo bar.

Google Video is also shutting down on 20 August and users have time till then to migrate, delete or download their content. It had stopped taking uploads in May 2009. Google will be moving the remaining hosted content to YouTube as private videos that users can access in the YouTube video manager.

The company will also be retiring Symbian Search App to focus efforts on mobile web search experience. “Switching from the app to the web experience will enable users to make the most of the web-wide improvements we make for search all the time,” Google said.

MUMBAI: In a bid to tap into Facebook‘s soaring popularity among Gen Next, sportscaster ESPN Star Sports has launched “My Country, My Cheer” Facebook application to engage Indian sports fans into supporting their national athletes.

Launched to welcome the countdown to the London 2012 Olympic Games, the application is hosted on facebook.com/espnstarsports, and enables visitors to post words of encouragement for their Olympic Games representatives.

In addition to providing a platform to cheer on the Olympians, the application also provides a detailed programme schedule for the lead up, and duration of the Games, to ensure that no sports fan misses any of their favourite athletes or Olympic Games moments!

Fans can also win exclusive ESPN Star Sports London 2012 prizes for writing the most creative and passionate cheer.

In addition to “My Country, My Cheer” Facebook application also launched a London 2012 Olympic Games dedicated page on its website, espnstar.com/london2012, featuring news, videos, TV programme schedules and Games highlights.

ESS is also building up hype towards the Games by broadcasting top class Olympic Games archive programming from over 30,000 hours of historical footage chronicling the last two decades of the Games.

As an official broadcaster of the London 2012 Olympic Games, ESS will offer more than 1,200 hours of coverage across three channels including round-the-clock coverage on ESPN, Star Sports and ESPN HD during the Games.

ESS had secured the exclusive non-standard television rights including cable & satellite television from the International Olympic Committee for the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Olympic Games for 22 countries across the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia.

The London 2012 Games will be the biggest sporting event this summer covering 302 events in 26 sports, and will feature over 10,000 athletes from more than 200 countries around the world.

MUMBAI: CSG Systems International, a global provider of software and services-based business support solutions, has said that it is offering new ways to accelerate Indian cable operators’ evolution into the digitization era.

CSG, which works with cable companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Dish Network in US, plans to bring its product portfolio, expertise and a variety of delivery models including licensed and a new managed service offerings for CSG Singleview, its real-time, convergent customer management, charging and billing solution, to the Indian market.

According to CSG International’s Vice President and MD Asia Pacific Ian Watterson said, “Digitization of the cable networks is building momentum across India, driven by rapid changes in consumers’ digital consumption behaviour. Cable service providers will need to rise to the challenge and transform the way in which they offer new services and support customers.”

Globally, and particularly in India, the cable industry is seeing dramatic growth and increasing complexity as a result of regulatory changes and the move from analog television offerings to digital.

Digitizing the cable platform allows the release of spectrum for hundreds of channels, enables multi-play services and stimulates services such as pay-per-view, subscription and interactive television.

To move from today’s analog video services to a digital television offering with voice and data services, India’s next generation cable operators will need to create a whole host of new tiered bandwidth, high speed data and content offerings to accommodate a wide variance in customer usage patterns and preferences.

Such initiatives must be backed by technology, with Business Support Systems (BSS) at the forefront of vital back-office functionality.

MUMBAI: Telecom Major Bharti Airtel has launched its Cloud Enablement Platform (CLEP) based on the HP Aggregation Platform for Software-as-a- Service (AP4SaaS).

Bharti Airtel will offer hosted SaaS and IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) applications to the small and large enterprises on a pay-as-you-go model.

Initially, Airtel will offer solutions like ERP, accounting packages, storage and compute on the Airtel CLEP Platform. Going forward the company will introduce diverse SaaS applications on the same platform especially for SMB customers, thereby helping them to meet the ever evolving business demands.

Airtel asserts that its Cloud Services will enable businesses of all sizes to optimize their IT costs while providing security, scalability and flexibility.

Bharti Airtel CEO (India & South Asia) Sanjay Kapoor said, “Cloud computing market in India is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 40 per cent by 2014. Bharti Airtel, with our end to end telecom solutions bundled with the latest technologies like 3G and 4G, is uniquely poised to lead this space by offering a wide range of Cloud based services /applications to our customers.

HP Enterprise Services built a CLEP using the HP AP4SaaS, integrated into Bharti Airtel‘s existing network system. A key component of the HP Cloud Services Enablement portfolio, the AP4SaaS is a common platform from which Airtel can not only deliver IaaS but also Communications as a Service and SaaS, either hosted on operator premises or integrated with third-party SaaS providers.

It provides a flexible set of web service interfaces for enhancing the Cloud Service Provider’s (CSP) customer portal and facilitates distribution, subscription, and consumption via a marketplace portal.

“Communications service providers need flexibility, innovation and speed to market to attract new customers and drive new revenue streams,” said HP India MD Neelam Dhawan. “HP Aggregation Platform for SaaS eases the integration of SaaS and IaaS into the CSP environment, expediting the delivery to Airtel’s small and medium business customers.”

HP will offer implementation and management of the end-to-end Cloud Enablement Platform.

MUMBAI: Hathway Cable and Datacom has decided to procure an additional 1 million set-top-boxes (STBs) to meet the demand for digital cable even as the government has pushed back the deadline for digitisation in the four metros by four months.

This is in addition to the previously planned deployment of 2 million boxes. The leading multi-system-operator (MSO) is expecting a surge in demand in the four metros and, with the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting pushing the deadline to 1 November for the switchover to digital cable TV, it wants to be prepared.

Hathway said that over the next four months it will scale up availability of STBs and by infusing additional boxes in the market, it is poised to meet the fresh deadline as well as ensure a smoother transition from analogue to digital for consumers across the four mandated cities – New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

“We anticipate that there will be a need of 3 million boxes in both Delhi and Mumbai (including multiple TV homes) and we want to have 50 per cent of these two markets. We have already seeded 1-1.1 million boxes in these two metros and are ready with adequate boxes,” Hathway Cable and Datacom MD and CEO K Jayaraman told Indiantelevision.com.

He added that the modified deadline has presented a unique opportunity to reach out to and impact a greater segment of the market. “Hathway plans to procure the additional 1 million STBs to gear up and leverage this opportunity. Therefore in total, we plan to deploy 3 million digital set top boxes across the two metro cities of Mumbai and Delhi. The rush for digital services will peak around the last fortnight of October and we do not want to disappoint the consumers and drive them towards the costlier option of DTH services,” he said in a statement.

Hathway gives a net customer subsidy of Rs 1000 on boxes and the subscriber acquisition cost comes to be around Rs 1,100, Jayaraman said. He added that in case the boxes didn’t get deployed, they can be used in the second phase of digitisation.

Talking about having an edge over DTH players, Jayaraman said that Hathway digital cable is at least 25 per cent cheaper than the traditional DTH players. Moreover, cable will have more bandwidth and, thus, can show 500 channels, while DTH players have limited transponders and bandwidth problem.

He said that momentum is high on digitisation and only in June over 200,000 boxes were shipped for Mumbai and Delhi.

Talking about HD service, he said that the HD offering is more popular in Mumbai and Bangalore and Hathway is seeding around 1000 HD boxes every month at present.

MUMBAI: Vibble TV, a leading provider of South Asian IPTV programming and a service of Internet Broadcasting Corp, has teamed up with Shemaroo Entertainment for Over The Top (OTT) distribution.

Shemaroo Entertainment offers a large portfolio of products on the IPTV platform and will offer Vibble TV‘s audience a variety of evergreen and latest Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi and Punjabi movies.

Shemaroo Entertainment director Jai Maroo said, “We are glad to be associated with a leading OTT service like Vibble TV which is targeted at South Asians worldwide. Our aim is to offer our audience easy and legal access to high quality South Asian Content on every possible platform where a consumer may want to consume entertainment. This tie up is a step towards the direction and will help us to reach a much wider range of audience on these new modes of consumption.”

Internet Broadcasting Corp CEO Suresh Kadagala added, “We are excited to be partnering with Shemaroo Entertainment. Not only do they have the quality and quantity of South Asian content across multiple languages, but also the understanding of this new way that people are consuming content. Combined with the excellent platform we have built to deliver this service, we will ensure Vibble TV will be a great service and a great viewing experience for South Asians all over the world.”

MUMBAI: The communication technologies and services provider company Ericsson has completed the acquisition of the broadcast services division of Technicolor, a technology leader in the media and entertainment sector, for €19 million.

The company had, on 13 March, made a bid to acquire Technicolor‘s division.

Ericsson EVP and head of business unit global services Magnus Mandersson said, “With this acquisition Ericsson has strengthened its position in the broadcast managed services market and reinforced our growth ambitions. Managed services in one of the main focus areas for Ericsson and we will continue to invest and expand this area.”

Following the acquisition, over 900 employees will be integrated into the Ericsson group in business unit Global Services over the coming months and will work under the Ericsson brand beginning today.

Ericsson is one of the leading providers of managed services for telecom operators and has invested in processes and tools in this segment. With this acquisition Ericsson broadens its managed services offerings for media broadcasters and confirms the company‘s long term ambition and commitment to the area.

MUMBAI: Cambridge-based mobile advertising startup Jumptap has raised $27.5 million in seventh round of funding. The company will use the funds to accelerate growth through additional investments in product and technology development, ahead of its initial public offering.

Keating Capital participated in this round of funding along with existing investors including General Catalyst Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Summerhill Venture Partners, Valhalla Partners and WPP.

The seven-year old company has so far raised $121.5 million.

General Catalyst Partners co-founder and managing director and chairman of the board at Jumptap John Simon said, “Jumptap tackled the challenge of honing mobile ad targeting and understanding mobile audience, and it is flourishing on this path. Under the direction of its innovative leadership team, Jumptap has emerged as a leader in the market.”

Over the past year, Jumptap has entered strategic partnerships with nearly 20 third-party data providers such as Polk, Acxiom, Datalogix, TARGUSinfo, Catalyst, and i360 thus becoming the first to bring offline data to mobile advertising.

The company has found a new vigour in the last two years since George Bell has joined as CEO.

Bell said, “The mobile advertising industry continues to grow at more than 50 per cent annually. Jumptap is growing in excess of that. We are focused on expanding our leadership in this surging market, developing our patented technologies in data and targeting, and preparing the company to go public.”

Jumptap has experience across major verticals such as automotive, retail, entertainment, consumer packaged goods and financial services and each month the agency reaches 107 million mobile users in the US and 156 million mobile users worldwide, and delivers 20 billion mobile impressions. The company also has with 29 patents issued and 200 pending.

Goodwin Procter served as Jumptap‘s outside counsel for the transaction.