Category: Technology

MUMBAI: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Kevin J Martin favours programming network on an a la carte basis and digital must-carry at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association‘s (NCTA) annual convention in Las Vegas on Monday.

A la carte service would offer the customer the choice to purchase the channels that they want when they subscribe to cable.

Martin felt the issue was increasingly important since the price for “expanded basic” cable has doubled since 1996. The cable industry opposes a la carte because it says it would limit diversity, reduce viewing choices, and increase consumer costs.

The FCC commissioner supported the digital transition because the broadcasters say the channels aren‘t viable without cable carriage. He added that the multicast channels would be a benefit to consumers from the digital transition.

Martin said the issue of a la carte has become important as expanded basic cable rates have almost doubled in the last 10 years.

NCTA president and CEO Kyle McSlarrow rejected the idea and said it contradicted another government suggestion that cable companies should offer multiple digital signals from broadcasters, known as “multicasting.”

Martin did praise the cable industry for providing broadband internet access on a mass scale and for creating competition in the phone business and noted he opposed regulation of broadband, including net neutrality rules, and urged that broadband services should not be subject of franchise fees or universal service fees.

He also promised an open dialogue with the industry. “I can promise you a fair hearing, serious consideration and above all, a lively debate,” he said.

Kyle McSlarrow appreciated that the FCC recognised some of the cable achievements but felt that they “still have a difference of opinion” on some issues.

Questioning Martin‘s logic, McSlarrow said that in the case of a la carte, Martin favoured dismantling the cable bundle of channels, while on cable must-carry, he wanted channels to be added.

McSlarrow added as a privately financed business, cable should not be mandated by government to offer networks a la carte but by free market.

NCTA spokesman Brian Dietz said ‘expanded basic‘ prices may have doubled but the package now includes about 70 channels, up from 45 in 1996. NCTA estimates the number of customers using digital phone service from cable companies to have grown from 1.5 million in 2001 to 9.5 million in 2006.

MUMBAI: SeaChange International will unveil new video-on-demand (VoD) solutions at this week‘s Cable Show in Las Vegas.

On display will be how it is deploying Cisco Content Delivery System (CDS) video servers with SeaChange’s new Axiom Core 4.0, a VoD infrastructure software.

SeaChange will demonstrate products with a Cisco CDS server at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association’s Cable Show.

Cisco marketing director for the firm‘s video and content networking business unit David Yates says, “In today’s competitive environment, service providers must deploy new personalized video services faster than ever before. Cisco and SeaChange are collaborating to deliver open solutions that are designed to drive interoperability between Cisco’s next-generation Content Delivery System and SeaChange’s Axiom software — thereby speeding service implementation in multi-vendor environments.”

SeaChange VP product marketing and alliances Tom Rosenstein adds, “Since its inception Axiom’s development and evolution has been rooted in industry standards, which enabled it to achieve a leading position in on-demand operations globally. Its openness was the key to its rapid uptake. Our support for the Cisco Content Delivery System video servers further illustrates the opportunities and choice that SeaChange brings to service providers.”

In addition to integrating Axiom and the Content Delivery System video servers, Cisco and SeaChange plan open interfaces for video-on-demand’s back-office operations and servers, enabling a wide range of service providers to take advantage of standards-based VoD architectures resulting in new applications and revenue streams.

Axiom Core 4.0 is an open software solution for television’s next generation of video-on-demand services. Taking advantage of open application programming interfaces, Axiom Core 4.0 was developed to host the widest range of innovative applications and components, including third-party servers.

It automates and optimizes the use of streaming, storage and network resources to ensure service to millions of television subscribers. Since 2000, Axiom software has delivered billions of movies, television programs and other video-on-demand streams in over 100 deployments with dozens of technology and content partners.

The Cisco CDS is composed of a network of appliances known as Content Delivery Engines (CDEs) which implement content storage, ingest, distribution, personalization and streaming capabilities. Groups of CDEs form a virtual platform for deployment of a variety of Content Delivery Applications (CDAs). In various combinations, CDAs help enable service providers to deploy multiple high-value customer services such as targeted ad-insertion in broadcast video and VoD; program time-shifting; local programming; “long tail” content; and public, educational and government channels.

NEW DELHI: Most of the stakeholders irrespective of the category they belong to are in favour of some regulation by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) with regard to direct-to-home (DTH) Television, but are divided on whether Quality of Service should be stipulated by the regulator or drawn up by the licensee.

According to the comments to a consultation paper relating to DTH issued by TRAI on 2 March, it is clear that the stakeholders are also divided on whether the regulator should stipulate a must carry clause, though many have said this should be decided by the licensee keeping the needs of his subscribers in mind.

A total of 27 stakeholders responded. They included DTH licencees Tata Sky, Dish TV and Sun Direct, broadcasters Star TV, ZEE Telefilms, Zoom TV and Times Now, SET Discovery, Neo Sports, and Sangeet Bangla Network, content providers Reliance Blumagic, NDS Asia Pacific, Bharti Airtel, the multi-system operator IndusInd Media, cable organizations Cable Operators Federation of India and Association of Cable Network Operators, consumer organization Voluntary Organisation in the Interest of the Consumer (VOICE) and Society for Consumer Consciousness, media advocacy group CASBAA (Cable and Satellite Broadcasters Association of Asia), and several individuals.

A majority of those who responded said they preferred regulation by TRAI rather than a Reference Interconnect Offer system for interconnection agreements. Some suggested that a Standard Interconnection Agreement could be mandated for this purpose. The licencees felt that there should be regulation till the industry attains a maturity level, though one of them felt that an agreement can be mandated only if the parties are unable to come to an agreement.

Sun Direct suggested a Standard Subscription Agreement to be formulated by TRAI. Star and Neo Sports were of the view that agreements already exist between the platforms and broadcasters, and therefore there should no further regulation.

CASBAA was strongly opposed to any kind of regulation or interference by any government functionary or regulator and felt that the free field of competition would help to decide any disputes. It felt that there was already more than necessary regulation in all matters related to broadcasting. TRAI should in fact be working to reduce regulation, it said.

Most respondents felt that there was no need for any amendment in the licence regulations relating to the must-carry clause to do away with the clause requiring provision of access to various content providers/channels on a non-discriminatory basis, though some felt this should be left to the consumers.

SET said as long as there was a `must provide’ obligation on the content providers/channels on a non-discriminatory basis, there should be a parallel obligation on the DTH platforms to provide access to all content providers/channels on a nondiscriminatory basis Bharti Airtel feels this provision has become obsolete.

The Association of Cable TV Network Operators felt that all the free-to-air channels of DD Direct and at least thirty FTA channels should be made available to all platforms.

The concept of carriage fee should be done away with till all broadcasters are given a fair chance.

Though divided on the issue of Quality of Service, most respondents say that certain guidelines already exist and therefore there is no need for the TRAI to bring forward any new regulation.

As far as Set Top Boxes go, most respondents said Rental Only schemes should be brought in and technical interoperability was irrelevant.

Star felt that since more DTH platforms are likely to come in, the recommendations in the Consultation Paper should be held over for at least one year to watch the situation.

BANGALORE:Airtel has increased its market share in Karnataka from 32 per cent to 38 per cent, adding 2.2 million customers to its network in 2006-07. This accounts for 48 per cent of the total population going mobile in the State during this period.

To keep pace with the growing network, Airtel is strengthening its distribution network.

It plans to increase the number of distributors from 600 as of 31st March 2007 to 1400 in a year‘s time. Retail outlets are to increase from 47,000 to 60,000. The company plans to go the ‘ITC way’ and have even the small ’paan and cigarette shop’ sell their recharge cards, which will bring up the current numbers from 1800 to 8000 this fiscal.

Airtel’s Karnataka operations have the largest subscriber base among all the circles and players in India, announced Deepak Mehrotra who has been promoted to Director – south this April from CEO, Karnataka circle.

Airtel covers more than 75 per cent of the overall population in Karnataka. This includes 99.7 per cent coverage of the urban population and 61.3 per cent of the rural population. Airtel currently covers about 5500 out of 5682 gram panchayats, a 97 per cent coverage. Presently, it covers 2250 Km (90 Per cent) of the Highways and 1425 Km (89 Per cent) of railroads in Karnataka. This coverage will touch 100 per cent in the coming year, according to the official release.

Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, along with Bihar, MP, UP and Maharashtra will share a major chunk of the proposed spends of $ 3.3 to 3.5 billion this year, since Airtel plans to focus on these circles.

For Karnataka this means that the focus will shift to rural towns with populations less than 20,000.

The company also has its 3G platform ready for Karnataka and is awaiting approvals from the concerned authorities for launching the same.

Airtel COO V Venkatesh has been promoted to replace Deepak Mehratro as CEO, while Airtel Maharashtra Circle vp sales and marketing Yatish Mehrotra has been promoted to COO, Karnataka circle

Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is one of India‘s leading private sector providers of telecommunications services with an aggregate of 39.02 million customers as of end of March‘07, consisting of 37.14 million mobile customers. Bharti Airtel has been rated among 10 best performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list.

MUMBAI: Zapak Digital Entertainment has announced that they have registered 1,15,263 users for its email service ZapakMail when it opened on 4 May 2007.

This is estimated to be the largest number of registered users garnered by any website on any given day. ZapakMail has been on beta stage for the past few weeks.

To push the launch the firm had done a basic outdoor campaign unveiling the logo for ZapakMail across 110 locations in 33 cities. Along with this, there was a teaser viral rolled out on the top online trade sites like Indiantelevision.com on Wednesday and Thursday last week. In all Zapak is spending Rs 60 million on marketing activities for its email service.

Zapak Digital Entertainment COO Rohit Sharma said, “We plan to roll out our mass media campaign from 7 May 2007 before which we conducted a teaser seeding with our TVC and Virals which has resulted in this disproportionate response. This is by far the highest number of registrations any website has garnered on one day. This is the first time a mail service is using 6-7 different creative routes to reach out to the masses and it has paid of for us.”

The firm has come up with unique marketing concepts. One is its Fast Film Festival. This is running online as well as in cinema halls. It is a series of spoofs on five films including Spiderman, Last Of the Mohicans. These only show what the title says and thus the film gets over fast. For instance the Spiderman spoof ad is called Spidermen 4. Four guys wearing Spiderman suits are shown on the screen for a few seconds. The message is that with Zapakmail one does not have to spend much time waiting for the service.

It will launch a TVC on differnt channels this week called Bano Budhimaan. Its point is to show that the mail is easy to use and uncluttered.

The TVC revolves around a central character called Bishnu, a body builder, who has typically always concentrated on his body building but not done much for the mind. While he is very popular amongst the people in the village they refer to him as ‘Tubelight‘. The situation is such that even the power goes off wherever he is. He is horrified of the word computer and email is just beyond his reach. However with Zapak Mail he sheds all his fears and simply logs on. Zapak Mail is so simple that Pehelwaan also becomes Budhimaan.

The idea was to choose a strongly Indian Character, so a typical Pehelwaan from an Akhada has been selected to play the part of Bishnu. Also the character is such that everyone of us would have seen someone like this in our surroundings, someone who is petrified of the computer or just has a plain Mental Block against it.

Another TVC will launch next week. The character here is Rocket Rada a postman who delivers mail as fast as a rocket compared to his rival. The ad says that this is what Zapak does vis-a-vis the competition. The TVC scripts have been conceptualised by Cyrus Oshidar and are being executed by Flying Saucer.

Radio Spots for Zapak Mail will be rolled out on three radio stations. Ambient ads have already been rolled out in malls and multiplexes. It is using staircases, elevators and the loos in these locations with the tage line ‘Easy Uploads Here‘ and ‘Easy Downloads Here‘

MUMBAI: Don‘t Just Watch It, Live It!

This is the message that LG Electronics will look to communicate in its new global integrated
marketing campaign focusing on the company‘s premium Full HD 1080p flat-panel high-definition televisions (HDTVs).

The global campaign will first be seen in the US and will roll out to more than 70 countries worldwide over the next month.

LG Electronics will invest approximately $25 million in the US and substantially more globally to highlight the ultimate viewing experience delivered by LG‘s innovative 1080p liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma HDTVs.

The key elements of the campaign include a series of broadcast, print, outdoor and online advertisements in three creative concepts all featuring an LG Red Couch, which serves as a symbol of the consumers‘ all-encompassing high-definition viewing experience. The campaign also incorporates LG‘s corporate sponsorship of the Cannes Film Festival and
targetted public relations activities highlighting LG‘s 1080p Full HD technology and stylish flat-panel designs.

LG Electronics USA VP consumer electronics marketing Allan Jason says, “The Red Couch campaign is a key initiative that addresses the growing high-definition market and the expansion of our HDTV product line. LG is a global leader in flat-panel HDTV technologies, and no company is better positioned to deliver the Full HD 1080p high-definition viewing experience.”

The global campaign, developed by Young & Rubicam‘s BrandBuzz, was produced in high-definition and recently made its network premiere in the US.

The US broadcast spots focus on two sports, leading off with golf and then introducing a bobsledding spot in the fourth quarter. Consumers sitting on a Red Couch are in the middle of the action, capturing the realistic viewing experience of LG 1080p HDTVs. The spots were filmed on location in South Africa by director Paul Butterworth.

The television commercials will run globally throughout the summer and fall on primetime network and cable television, complemented by print ads in major consumer publications. Completing the integrated marketing package, LG also will be launching a Red Couch online component where visitors can experience exclusive content and learn more about 1080p HDTV and LG‘s Red Couch campaign.

This year LG is launching a dozen new Full HD models in the US. The expanded 1080p lineup includes nine LCD HDTVs in screen sizes ranging from 37 to 52 inches, and three plasma models (in 50-, 60- and 71-inch sizes).

MUMBAI: Online competitive intelligence service Hitwise has announced that the music based reality show American Idol‘s site, www.americanidol.com, was the most visited broadcast network television show website in the US among a category of selected shows from the six broadcast networks for the week ending 28 April.

Among the custom category of more than 100 television show websites, AmericanIdol.com received 32.96 per cent of all US visits to websites within the category.

NBC‘s Deal or No Deal site with 12.33 per cent received the second largest percentage of US visits. Then comes ABC‘s Dancing with the Stars site that received 9.31 per cent of visits while ABC‘s Grey‘s Anatomy site received 3.23 percent of visits. NBC‘s Heroes website rounded out the top five visited shows receiving 3.15 per cent of visits.

The results are from a weekly Hitwise Conversions report that ranks the selected broadcast network television show websites, whether it is a stand-alone site such as American Idol or a section within a larger website such as Deal or No Deal. The show websites are ranked by market share of US visits among all the websites included.

MUMBAI: Building upon its belief that entry level handsets can be both attractive and affordable, Nokia has introduced two new mobile handsets to its portfolio – the Nokia 2630 and Nokia 2760. the products will be available later this year.

Each model also offers cameras and Bluetooth technology, enabling customers to take their entertainment with them wherever they go.

Says Nokia senior VP mobile phones Soren Petersen, “The progressively stylish design of the Nokia 2630 and Nokia 2760 phones offer a striking visual and tactile impact, but also incorporate a feature set designed to enhance the total user experience. And by including a camera and Bluetooth technology, we are enabling entry consumers to share their experiences on the go.”

Nokia 2630 is the thinnest handset in Nokia‘s portfolio. At a mere 9.9 mm, the Nokia 2630 balances a modern design with a full range of features to meet the needs of emerging market consumers. A camera combined with Bluetooth technology allows images to be easily sent, shared, stored and
printed. Convenient productivity tools such as email, MMS, calendar and a calculator satisfy the work side of life, while features such as an FM radio, with direct access shortcut key and MP3 ringtones satisfy the entertainment side.

The Nokia 2760 features a digital camera and Bluetooth technology to make it easy to share the photos that they capture. The Nokia 2760 also features video recording, video playback, and FM radio. The combination of Bluetooth and GPRS creates a convenient way to access data on the go for email and Internet.

It also features extra large storage to save up to 1000 contacts in the phonebook.

MUMBAI: Microsoft Corp. today announced that Windows Live Hotmail, the successor to MSN Hotmail, is launching globally in more than 36 languages and 12 markets across Asia, including India.

The new service combines the best advertising features from MSN Hotmail with new and improved formats that allow advertisers to gain more mileage in web space. The new version also promises to be safer, more powerful and productive, with flexible access via the Web, on a mobile phone or with an e-mail client.

With the launch of Windows Live Hotmail, Microsoft has tried to balance the needs of advertisers with the user experience. A new single 728 x 90 super-banner ad that appears on the main mail, contacts, and calendar pages aims to ensure that advertisers capture 100 per cent share of voice.

Similarly, a large rectangular 300 X 600 ad unit on the Sent Mail confirmation page is meant to serve a similar purpose. On the Today page, advertisers can leverage 300 X 250 and 728 x 90 super-banner ads to get in front of consumers as soon as they log into their accounts. Advertisers will also be able to target customers by age, gender, occupation, region, country, language, time and day and connection speed.

“Windows Live Hotmail is a unique experience that will help to deepen engagement with our users and expand our audience. By developing an experience for people that is fast, simple, and safe, we have built a valuable touch point for advertisers,” says MSN India head of digital marketing revenue and strategic business Rajnish.

Several upgraded features include the safety bar at the top of each e-mail message that will give a visual cue of the status of the e-mail, improved spam protection, customization of views and coloured themes according to the choice of users. The classic version looks similar to MSN Hotmail for those who prefer the familiar look, while full version works more like Outlook with advanced functionality.

NEW DELHI: All educational institutions having Satellite Interactive Terminals (SITs) or Receive Only Terminals (ROTs) can now receive educational programmes from EDUSAT, the first Indian satellite built exclusively for serving the educational sector, and can interact and ask questions through audio-video conferencing or text mode or through telephone.

Curriculum-based education is being imparted via the satellite by the University Grants Commission (UGC) through the Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC). The ground infrastructure had been largely created by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) which had invested Rs 890 million in the programme till December 2006.

All states and Union territories had earlier last month committed to sign memorandums of understanding with the ISRO and the Human Resource Development within the next two months. Only 14 states and union territories are so far using the satellite.

The 1950 kg EDUSAT has several new technologies. It carries five Ku-band transponders providing spot beams, one Ku-band transponder providing a national beam and six Extended C-band transponders with national coverage beam. It will join the INSAT system that already has more than 130 transponders in C-band, Extended C-band and Ku-band providing a variety of telecommunication and television services.

Parliament was told today by Minister of State for HRD D. Purandeswari that the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is also sponsoring telecasting of programmes through AICTE-EDUSAT network for conducting training programmes and seminars. The Council is also engaged in the development of digital course wares.

The infrastructure of EDUSAT is being utilized by Indira Gandhi National Open University -(IGNOU) for curriculum-based education, teachers’ training, professional educational courses and for conducting teleconferencing sessions for software content generation. National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) also conducts inter-active orientation/training programmes of teachers and teachers’ educators.

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) utilizes EDUSAT network for group discussion, lectures, demonstrations, video-shows, training and capacity building programmes.

Meanwhile, HRD Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com that the “SAKSHAT” Education Portal set up by the ministry will shortly be used on State-level servers. States have agreed to develop learning modules in their respective languages suited to the State-specific context and post these on this portal.

States agreed to encourage their universities/colleges and technical education institutions to become members of INFLIBNET (Information for Library Network) and INDEST (Indian National Digital Library for Engineering Sciences and Technology) consortia, respectively, so that they gain access to e-journals and other online academic resources through the centralized subscription process of these consortia.