Category: Technology

MUMBAI: Sector regulator Trai has issued an order instructing all access providers to comply with the DOT’s guidelines issued recently for allocation of short codes by the access providers to the content providers including SMS based services.

It is mentioned that the short codes are being used by service providers/ content providers for variety of applications including downloading ring-tones, contests, quiz, polls, information and enquiry service, entertainments, SMS Games, Astrology, Cricket updates etc.

Access providers particularly mobile operators are allocating short codes to their content providers for various value added services including SMS based services within their network. Trai observed that some of these short codes were not in accordance with the National Numbering Plan-2003 and DOT’s earlier orders on this issue, asserts an official release.

As per the license agreement access providers should adhere to the National Numbering Plan in this context Trai had asked access providers to stop use of these prohibited levels vide its direction dated 31 July 2006. Subsequently this issue was examined by DoT and necessary guidelines in this regard were issued.

As per the guidelines issued by DoT five digit code starting with level five is to be used by access providers for allocation of short codes to their content providers including SMS based services within their network and accordingly all existing four digit short codes are to be prefixed by five to convert the same to five digit codes.

Further the existing five and six digit short codes are to be migrated to five digit codes by replacing the first digit or first two digits respectively by five and so on.

Trai has sought compliance of the DoT guidelines from all the access providers as and when the same is implemented but not later than 31 May 2007, adds the release.

MUMBAI: Internet service provider for cars Autonet Mobile has announced the debut of a new wireless service for cars at ShowStoppers during the consumer electronics show (CES) 2007 in Las Vegas.

The company also plans to announce an agreement with a car rental company to offer a portable, wireless internet service by the end of the first quarter.

With the wireless broadband mobile network, Autonet Mobile is bringing a new internet media center to vehicles by letting passengers check email, surf the web, game or communicate via any WiFi-enabled device. The service is optimised for the in-car experience, and is specifically designed to work on 95 percent of US roads, regardless of driving conditions or location, asserts an official release.

The Autonet Mobile Unit is priced at $ 399 with a monthly service charge of $ 49.

MUMBAI: IOL Broadband Ltd is set to soft launch its IPTV services on the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) network in Bangalore on 14 January.

The company, which has a non exclusive tie up with BSNL for setting up the content delivery network, has already started trial runs in Bangalore. “We are also looking at launching in Kolkata, Chennai and Bhopal,” says IOL Broadband executive director Oberai.

IOL is yet to make a commercial launch of its IPTV services in MUmbai, the first city where it kickstarted operations on the MTNL network. “We will make a commercial launch when we are able to offer 100 TV channels. We are currently offering 40 channels and have signed up with Star,” says Oberai.

The company has also signed a revenue share agreement for its IPTV service with Anytime, a consortium of major Hollywood Studios comprising Disney, Fox, Warner, and Universal which will provide access to Hollywood movies.

Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL), which is the holding company of the Times Group, has picked up a small stake in IOL Broadband for Rs 50 million.

MUMBAI: California-based market research firm iSuppli has released a study that predicts that the number of subscribers to Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services worldwide is expected to nearly triple in 2007.

This will help drive a strong increase in sales of wired communications equipment and related semiconductors for the year.

Global IPTV subscribers will reach 14.5 million in 2007, up 192.4 per cent from 4.9 million in 2006, iSuppli predicts. By 2010, worldwide IPTV subscribers will amount to 63 million

The study notes that in the long run, the Asia Pacific region will lead the global revolution in IPTV in terms of subscribers, service revenue, infrastructure etc. The region’s broadband penetration, supportive regulatory framework, will fuel the growth. China has potential; The US will be a difficult market for IPTV: Worldwide IPTV service revenue is forecast to reach $ 38 billion in the year 2009. The worldwide IPTV subscribers are forecasted to reach 53 million in the year 2009. The Americas and Western Europe are expected to be the biggest markets in terms of revenue per user basis.

IPTV market potential varies highly across the world depending upon the local Pay-TV market and regulatory conditions. China will be the future IPTV dragon due to rapid urbanisation, fast growing economy and expanding middle class.The US will be a more difficult market for IPTV, due to high existing pay-TV penetration, and stiff price and service competition that is likely to come from the entrenched operators in the cable and satellite sectors. Consumer familiarity with IPTV service is very low although youth today are much more aware of it when compared with people belonging to other age groups. In terms of the principal barriers to IPTV adoption, the cost is by far and away the most significant factor across all countries and age groups.

MUMBAI: The mobile value added services (Mobile Vas or MVas) industry could be worth nearly Rs 45.6 billion by the end of 2007, from its current size of Rs 28.5 billion.

These findings are a part of the Mobile Value Added Services Report, jointly prepared by the Internet And Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International.

A break up of the total market size of Rs 28.5 billion reveals that P2P (person to person) SMS or text messaging, continues to dominate the industry with Rs 11.4 billion, followed by ringtones, including caller ring back tones (CRBT) at Rs 10.26 billion; Person to Application (P2A) and Application to Person (A2P) at Rs 4.28 billion; games and data at Rs 1.71 billion and others (MMS etc) at Rs 860 million.

The P2P SMS revenue is accrued completely to the telecom operators. The remaining MVas revenues are distributed among content owners, developers and the telecom operators on a revenue sharing basis.

In the case of MVas (except P2P SMS) the revenue sharing arrangement is heavily in favour of telecom operators. This model is significantly different from more developed markets such as China where typically the operators are entitled to 20-30 per cent only. In the case of enterprise solution services, the revenue share arrangement between operator and short code owner is typically 70 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.

IAMAI president Dr Subho Ray says, “This is the first attempt at a market estimate for the industry and we are hopeful that government and industry will now look at the MVas industry with the attention that is due to it.”

He adds that for the market to grow and come out with innovative solutions three issues must be set right at the outset: revenue sharing and schedule of payments which is currently heavily in favour of telecom operators; stable and long term enabling policies by the government; and intra industry issues such as intellectual property rights.

MUMBAI: HBO has announced a deal with telecommunications company SK Telecom for a mobile video on demand service in Korea. The service launched a few days ago.

The mobile service features full episodes from HBO‘s series Sex and the City, Six Feet Under and Curb Your Enthusiasm. SK Telecom is supporting the launch by offering a free one month trial period to 21 January, making four episodes of both Sex and the City and Six Feet Under available during that time.

HBO International senior VP Stanley Fertig says, ” With one of the most advanced mobile networks on earth, SK Telecom is a leader in providing on-demand mobile entertainment to its subscribers. This deal is also an example of the many opportunities HBO is finding around the world as digital technology advances in the international marketplace.”

MUMBAI: Pay TV technology firm NDS has completed the acquisition of 100 per cent of the share capital of Jungo.

Jungo provides residential and business gateway software platforms and applications. Jungo’s flagship products, OpenRG – the residential gateway software platform and OpenSMB – the small and medium gateway software platform enable Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to bring broadband customer premises equipment (CPE) such as Residential Gateways, triple play gateways, office-in-a-box gateway, firewall/VPN routers to market quickly.Jungo also develops USBware, a complete embedded USB software stack for mobile handsets, set top boxes and other consumer devices, and WinDriver, – a driver development toolkit that enables developers to create custom device drivers for multitude of operating systems.

NDS last month had announced plans to acquire Jungo. The acquisition NDS says bolsters its position in the growing broadband television market Jungo‘s products and expertise further accelerate introduction of new end-to-end solutions for the converging broadcast/broadband market.

MUMBAI: UK pay TV service provider BSkyB says that the total number of Sky+ boxes installed in customers‘ homes in the UK has broken through two million for the first time.

The milestone was reached after the number of Sky+ boxes grew by more than 50 per cent in 2006, putting Sky on track to pass its target of 25 per cent Sky+ penetration well in advance of the original schedule of 2010.

The company says that the rapid growth of Sky+ highlights increasing demand from customers for the ability to take control over their television viewing. With two million active boxes, almost five million viewers are using Sky+ to record without video tape, pause and rewind live TV, and record all episodes of a favourite series at the touch of a button.

To give customers even more choice and control, Sky plans to introduce a number of new enhancements to Sky+ in 2007 that will revolutionise the TV experience even further. These innovations will include the ability to use the internet to set a recording on your Sky+ box even when you are away from home. Customers will simply log on to www.sky.com to programme their box remotely.

Also in 2007, Sky will introduce a new enhancement giving Sky+ customers the chance to enjoy a selection of the week‘s best programmes on-demand. The service will be available to more than one million Sky+ and Sky HD customers from launch, making use of additional recording capacity on the hard drive of more recent boxes.

Sky CFO Jeremy Darroch said, “Sky+ has changed the way millions of people watch TV. In its own way, Sky+ has as dramatic an effect on the experience of TV as the iPod has with music. There‘s no going back once you‘ve experienced the ability to take control over the TV schedules and we‘re planning new innovations in 2007 to make Sky+ even better.

“Passing the milestone of 2 million Sky+ boxes keeps us on track to break through our target of 25 per cent penetration well ahead of schedule. The rapid growth of Sky+ shows strong customer demand for additional services and gives us great confidence as our multi-product strategy moves forward this year.”

Viewing behaviour in Sky+ homes

To coincide with the milestone of two million boxes, Sky has published new research findings highlighting how Sky+ is changing the TV viewing habits of families around the country. The data, garnered from the Sky View research panel, provides an accurate measurement of how customers are using Sky+ to record – or ‘time-shift‘ – television programmes.

Drama is the genre of programming most frequently recorded by Sky+ customers, accounting for 39.3 per cent of all time-shifted viewing. Other popular genres are documentaries (14.9 per cent), entertainment (13 per cent) and movies (9.5 per cent). In contrast, some genres of content remain at their most popular when consumed live. News and weather account for just 0.6% of time-shifted viewing by Sky+ viewers, while current affairs programmes account for 1.2%. (Source: Sky View)

These trends are reflected in the ranking of channels whose programming is subject to most time-shifting by Sky+ viewers:

With the ability to record two programmes simultaneously, Sky+ resolves scheduling clashes and allows customers to record peak-time shows to watch at a more convenient time.

Sky View research shows that, in Sky+ households, time-shifting accounts for 22 per cent of all viewing of programmes originally scheduled between 9 pm and 10 pm and 17 per cent of all viewing of programmes scheduled between 10 pm and 11 pm.

MUMBAI: The increasing influence of mobile video enabled on 3G networks will drive the uptake of many mobile sports, leisure and information services over the next five years, says Juniper Research.

The global market for sports, leisure and information content (infotainment) is set to grow from its 2006 value of just under $4.2 billion to $9.5 billion by 2011. The largest geographic market is forecast to be in Europe, which is expected to account for 40 per cent of revenues over the 2006 to 2011 period, with Asia Pacific contributing 33 per cent and the rapidly growing US market 18 per cent. The Asia Pacific region, according to the Juniper Research report, would generate the most infotainment traffic over the period, but higher price levels would make Europe the largest revenue generator.

The report‘s author Bruce Gibson said, “video has the potential to transform the user experience of many infotainment services, provided the video quality is good enough. The continued roll-out of 3G services globally will provide the platform for the development of high quality video content based services.” Types of services that will particularly benefit from enhanced video capability will include sports services, services based around TV shows and celebrities, traffic update services, news services and community applications with user generated content. Growth in sports services and services with user generated content should be particularly strong. Gibson adds, “Sports services are getting repeated boosts by high profile global and regional sporting events. 2008 will be a significant year in market growth with Uefa Euro 2008 and the Beijing Olympics. However the need to acquire mobile sports rights is keeping sports service prices high and these services require high quality and timely content.“On the other hand community applications with user generated content have relatively low cost content acquisition and minimise much of the complexity of content acquisition and updating. We see growth opportunities in both market sectors for very different reasons.”

MUMBAI/DELHI: Multi-system operators (MSOs) are under stress and strain to meet the demand for set-top boxes (STBs) as conditional access system (Cas) has come into effect in the notified areas of Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata.

“We are moving 5000-6000 STBs a day in Mumbai,” says IndusInd Media and Communications Ltd. director-in- charge Ravi Mansukhani.

Wire & Wireless India Ltd CEO Jagjit Singh Kohli says that while he can‘t give a number in terms of the number of boxes being seeded, business has been brisk and smooth. “There have not been any technical glitches. The Cas deployments in the notified areas by all the cable operators has so far been much more than what direct-to-home (DTH) has achieved in these pockets.”.

For those who are taking the boxes, MSOs are providing all the pay channels for a trial period of 15 days. “We want to give them some time before they can decide on the channels that they want to pay for. After this period, they can choose what they want and they will be billed only for what they have decided to take,” says Mansukhani.

Adds WWIL executive vice president Arvind Mohan: “This is a transition period, so we are giving all the channels to all the STB subscribers. The processing of the forms being filled up takes some time. We are giving the subscribers a free run of all the channels. By 15 January, the entire system will be in place, and billing will be for the month depending on the channels they have selected.”

So how long does it take once a consumer orders for a STB? With so many people wanting a box at the same time, the maximum time it would take to get the system installed is a day as it has to be fed into the smart card and billing system, says Mansukhani.

Interestingly, there are indications that at the ground level there is some confusion in terms of pricing. For instance, this writer, residing in the Colaba area of South Mumbai, paid Rs 2000 on 1 January for a box while the MSO had recently announced a reduction in the price to Rs 1500. “There are some confusions still prevailing on the ground about the prices and packages on offer,” admits a local cable operator.

Speaking on behalf of the broadcasters, Star India‘s distribution head Tony D‘Silva says that it is too soon to comment on the adoption rate. “We had expected that there would be some confusion. We are adopting a wait and watch policy. In a few days time the situation should be clear.”

Zee Turner CEO Arun Poddar says that there is certainly a demand and supply mismatch across all the MSOs. He concedes some last mile operators would not be communicating adequately with consumers, thus leading to confusion.

Despite some confusion, the Cas rollout in South Delhi is happening steadily as there is a rush for the STBs.

SN Sharma of Hathway denied that there is any shortage of boxes. “This is a continuous process and we are getting consignments from our Korea company on a daily basis. There is a lag of time for getting connected because the local cable operator has a manpower shortage,” he says.