Category: Applications

MUMBAI: The South Korean fixed-line & broadband carrier KT Corporation has called for the government to speed up introducing Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), claiming that a one-year delay would cost the nation about 1 trillion won (US$1.07 billion).

An Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union report quotes The Korea Times on KT‘s warning that Korea might suffer a loss of more than 1 trillion won, if the adoption of IP-based media services was delayed by one year, hurting related equipment makers severely.

Korea has been slow to adopt the cutting-edge services largely due to the protests and lobbying efforts from terrestrial TV and cable service providers, who fear their market share might decline and profits shrink. KT and other telecom operators with solid IP infrastructure want to use their facilities to expand their service coverage and broaden income bases.

Korea is now expected to allow operators to launch IPTV as early as in 2007 and KT plans to invest 300 billion won (US$319 million) into IPTV infrastructure this year for a faster service launch, the report adds

MUMBAI: In another 15 days time, all Star channels may well be made available to the country‘s only private direct-to-home operator Dish TV.

Subhash Chandra‘s DTH service Dish TV has won a favourable judgment from by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) in this regard. As per the tribunal‘s directive, Star India will have to distribute the signals of all its channels to Dish TV.

In an order passed this morning, TDSAT, while directing the sector regulator to set a benchmark for channel prices for DTH services, said that Star channels should be made available to Dish TV at half the price at which they are available to cable operators.

The reason for this, according to TDSAT, is that DTH is an addressable system where loss of revenue down the value chain is negligible if not zero

An interpretation of this observation on rates would mean that all Star channels (comprising bouquets I & II) will cost Dish TV Rs 27 exclusive of taxes, as against the cable operators paying Rs 54 per subscriber/per month.

While issuing the order, which had been kept reserved since 5 July when arguments concluded, TDSAT said, “We have no basis to lay down the actual rates per channel, which we feel is the prerogative of Trai. However, to begin with, we feel that 50 per cent of the rates being charged for cable platform be made applicable to the DTH platform.”

Reacting to the developments, a jubilant Zee Telefilms vice-chairman and Dish TV business head Jawahar Goel said, “The verdict vindicates our position. We will be sending a letter to Star by tomorrow requesting them to conclude an agreement for their channels.” Everybody should respect the law of the land, Goel added.

Said a Star India spokesperson, “We have received the judgment of the TDSAT in the matter of ASC Enterprises vs. Star India Pvt. Ltd. earlier today and we are now in the process of examining it in detail.

“The judgment comes at an opportune time as we believe it will help in clearing the air on a number of critical areas that impact addressable systems in general and DTH in particular and will be a positive impetus to their development. However, it appears to us that there may be some specific areas within the judgment that will require further clarification.

“Our intention is to seek clarification on these areas at the earliest opportunity and make a response accordingly. Star has been and will continue to be an active supporter of all addressable platforms and will work with them to ensure that the viewer‘s interests are best served.”

Interestingly, TDSAT has also said that no minimum guarantee needs to be given by Dish TV for the Star channels and the payments would be made on actual number of subscribers.

It directed Dish to submit a list of subscribers from the subscriber management system (SMS) every month to Star — a model that TDSAT said would be applicable to all DTH operators entering into commercial deals with broadcasters.

Respondent Star had pointed out that the minimum guarantee requirement is an internationally prevalent norm in the DTH industry as it incentivizes the DTH operator to ensure higher subscribers.

TDSAT, in its order has said that in case of any denial of the signals, the DTH operator may approach the tribunal for further relief.

For the record, Chandra‘s ASC Enterprises, which holds a DTH licence, had moved TDSAT alleging that Star India was delaying making available its channels in breach of a regulatory order that states all content should be made available to all platform on a non-discriminatory basis.

Also Read:
Dish moves TDSAT against Star

TDSAT puts a lock on any DTH operator carrying Star channels

MUMBAI: Radio Mirchi will unveil a visual radio in Delhi by the end of this month, making it the third city in the world to adopt a technology that will open up a new revenue for the private FM radio operator.

Radio Mirchi is partnering with Hutch and Airtel to offer this service. The broadcast will be available on Nokia mobile phones with Hewlett-Packard (HP) as the technology provider.

“We have identified four key markets including Mumbai for launching visual radio. Though it is too early to exploit strong revenues from this medium, it will give us a presence in emerging platforms like mobile phones,” says Entertainment Network (India) Ltd managing director and CEO AP Parigi.

Radio Mirchi will speed ahead of Virgin Radio which is planning to launch visual radio later this year. “We are doing test runs and will launch it this year,” says Virgin Radio UK director of digital media James Cridland.

Helsinki in Finland and Singapore are the other two places where visual radio has kicked off commercially. The plan to launch in Delhi was announced today by Radio Mirchi deputy-CEO Prashant Pandey at the India Radio Forum 2006.

Radio stations are turning to new revenue streams as they are facing competition from emerging technologies. Specific threats from MP3, which had an estimated 55 million devices in the market in 2005, and internet webcasting are eating into the earnings of traditional radio. So the way out is to adopt into new digital platforms like direct-to-home (DTH) and digital audio broadcasting (DAB).

Virgin is moving its content to such platforms. “About 28 per cent of our audience is coming from new platforms. As for visual radio, it is important to have a presence in this segment. Nokia will have 100,000 handsets in UK for visual radio by the end of the year,” says Cridland.

BANGALORE: The Football world cup, which concluded last week, attracted sports lovers across the globe to the Internet. All major portals and mobile content providers in India had specially redesigned their content for the World Cup to feed the demand of football fans.

Online add-ons such as mobile download of wallpapers of some of the popular football players and online and mobile games attracted the maximum number of fans to the internet, according to an official release from the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

Says IAMAI president Dr Subho Ray, “The World Cup bonanza shows that the Internet has emerged not only as an alternative medium but as a parallel medium to a large section of the people in India. With the advent of broadband as well as mobile phones, it is possible to keep a track of the matches even on the go. Websites and mobile content companies are gradually realising the potential of both these mediums and hence are increasingly beefing up their content for such mega events and in the process successfully attracting more and more users and advertisers”.

HT Media, for example, recorded a 5 per cent to 7 per cent increase in the online revenues, claims Hindustan Times GM Business Development Salil Kumar. Kumar also mentioned that the number of hits during the prime time period at 9 30 pm reached an average of 15,00,000, at post-midnight averaged 20,00,000 and evening 6 30 pm reached an average 5,00,000.

According to Kumar, in terms of city-wise access to World Cup related activities, Delhi/Chandigarh topped with 40 per cent, followed by Mumbai 30 per cent, Pune 5 per cent, Ahmedabad 5 per cent, Bangalore 10 per cent, Hyderabad 5 per cent and others 5 per cent.

States Sify Ltd VP Interactive Services Surya Mantha, “Thousands of clips of World Cup football related content were viewed on Sify‘s broadband portal Sify Max in the first two weeks of the tournament”. He added that the most watched clip was related to the Brazil v/s France match on 2 July, which was viewed 25,000 times.

Soccer fans around the world treat their favourite sport as a religion and hence increasingly want to know more and more about their favourite players. This has resulted in an offbeat category on websites, which provides other such information to the football fans. In the offbeat category, Mantha says, “A video featuring the wives/girlfriends of star football players was the most popular”.

Online advertisers took full advantage of the World Cup fever. MSN India had advertisers such as Lenovo and LIC Housing, informs MSN India Sales and Marketing head R. Rajnish. He also mentioned that netizens mostly in the age group of 18-35 years visited their website for World Cup related activities, the release adds.

“For Rediff.com”, says chief media revenue officer Arvindra Kanwal, “increased page views resulted in more ad inventory which in turn resulted in better revenue”. He adds, “Football as a platform brought a set of advertisers like Ranbaxy, Maruti Swift, Gillette, Microsoft, Apollo Tyres and others. Our response in page views and sponsor interest mirrored cricket and largely caught the interest of Sec A & B urban audiences in eight metros. Smaller towns were slow to respond”.

Airtel on the other hand was one of the presenting sponsors of the Fifa World Cup on ESPN, which had the exclusive telecast rights. It provided soccer fans World Cup updates, sourced from ESPN Mobile. It also offered the official song of the FIFA World Cup as a Hello Tune & Ringtone for all Airtel customers.

Says Bharti Airtel Ltd joint president (Mobility), “Football and World cup related content were among the most popular downloads on Airtel Live, the multi-access entertainment portal of Airtel. As per data available over the last 30 days, the official Fifa World Cup game is among the four most downloaded games. In this visually engaging game, gamers experienced the 12 official stadiums as they took one of their 32 national teams from qualification to glory. ‘Time of Our Lives‘, ballad by Il Divo & Toni Braxton, which was the official Fifa World Cup song, has been among the top 10 downloaded songs in the non-film category on Airtel. Football related images were among the top five downloaded wallpapers.”

MUMBAI: Indiagames has launched its new service ‘Games on Demand‘ with Airtel Broadband and telephone services. The service was launched with cricketing maestro Sachin Tendulkar playing an online rally game.

This service offers legal games at a bare minimum monthly subscription fee of just Rs. 199. Indiagames has partnered with a number of leading games publishers like Microsoft, Atari, Playfirst, Alawar, Merscomm, Cenega, Meridian, Techland, amongst others, to be able to bring a variety of premium single and multiplayer games, which include popular titles such as Age of Empires, Driv3R and Flight Simulator to this service, states an official release.

Commenting on the launch of its Games on Demand service (G.o.D), Indiagames CEO Vishal Gondal said, “With over 85 per cent of games in India being sold illegally, we believe that with our unparalleled price offering we will significantly expand the segment of legitimate sales and bring the experience of high quality online gaming to millions of gamers in India. Our online gaming service would give consumers a legitimate reason to opt for a broadband service, thus accelerating the growth of the broadband user base in India”

“Today, customers are looking for rich content to enhance the overall broadband experience. As a leading service provider, we aim to offer the hottest on-demand content through as many channels as possible,” says Airtel Broadband & Telephone Services CMO Akshay Kumar. He added, “Online gaming is fast gaining popularity across the world and with the Games on Demand service on Airtel, we are gearing up to give our customers a cool and enhanced gaming experience with the power of a high-speed network.”

The G.o.D. service offers advantages like high speed downloads without additionally charging for data transfer during download, multiplayer compatible games, automatic patching and security. To further enhance the value proposition Airtel and Indiagames will be offering the service with all its features on a free trial basis for the first fifteen days. To experience this service, consumers can log on to http://www.airtelbroadband.in/games.

MUMBAI: The IP-based, end-to-end networking solutions and services provider Utstarcom has announced that it has signed a follow-on contract to deploy its RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution to China Telecom, the largest fixed-line telecom operator in China.

The commercial IPTV network is initially designed to support 51,000 users in Shanghai, which is also the largest city in China with a population of approximately 18 million. The number of broadband users in Shanghai continues to grow at a rapid rate approaching two million subscribers at the end of first quarter of 2006. UTStarcom believes these factors provide a solid foundation for the IPTV market in both Shanghai and China.

“We believe the opportunity to deploy a commercial IPTV network with China Telecom for a large number of additional subscribers in Shanghai will lay a solid foundation for UTStarcom‘s future market development of IPTV in China,” says UTStarcom China chairman & CEO . “We believe that RollingStream is the best-in-class IPTV solution in the market. It is a mature, IP-based platform that is designed to provide carrier-class, end-to- end triple-play services to carriers worldwide.”
 
Prior to this deployment, China Telecom Shanghai selected UTStarcom to deploy an initial 5,000-user IPTV network in November 2005. During the first stage of deployment, UTStarcom‘s RollingStream solution was put through a rigorous series of technology tests, states an official release.

Partnering with Shanghai Media Group (SMG), China Telecom Shanghai plans to offer subscribers a service package of live broadcast television and videos-on-demand. Additionally, the service is designed to offer subscribers “time-shift” capabilities — the ability to pause and rewind live television, as well as an expansive amount of storage to record any program and watch on each subscriber‘s own schedule. Shanghai is the largest city of China with a total population of approximately 18 million.

The number of broadband users in Shanghai approached two million at the end of first quarter of 2006. UTStarcom believes these factors provide a solid foundation for the addressable market of IPTV in China, adds the release.

 MUMBAI: The US-based TVWorldwide.com, in cooperation with Media Training Worldwide, has announced the details for the formal launch of The Speaking Channel, www.speakingchannel.tv, an internet TV channel featuring live and on-demand content for people who want to learn from great speakers and improve on their own speaking skills.

The companies stated the channel would feature a free video webcast during today‘s launch party, live from The Speaking Channel studios near Times Square in New York City, beginning at 6:30 pm, ET. The Speaking Channel was soft-launched during TV Worldwide‘s webcast of Streaming Media East in New York City, on the 23 and 24 May.

Since that time, this internet TV channel has leveraged compelling new content to attract strong audience participation from those interested in honing their presentation skills, whether they are speaking to large or small audiences, the news media or in civic or social arenas, states an official release.

The channel features content that addresses speaking excellence to build individual presentation skills in the following areas. 1. Business (large and small group presentations). 2. Public life (civic affairs and politics). 3. Work life (employee communication/job interviews). 4. Family/social communication (parties/networking events). The Channel will continue to feature television programming that celebrates outstanding spoken communication and gives viewers learning tools on how to build and improve their own speaking skills, the release adds.

“This Internet TV Channel has attracted healthy audiences since we soft-launched it in May and we‘re excited about the prospects of working with Media Training Worldwide on The Speaking Channel as we launch with the webcast from the Channel‘s Times Square Studios,” states TVWorldwide.com CEO Dave Gardy. “By creating and deploying global/local, ‘lean-in‘ interactive content for speaking enthusiasts as we‘ve done for our other Internet TV channels, we believe we can effectively present a whole new forum for the community of those interested in speaking excellence and improvement. Most important, we know The Speaking Channel will offer our industry partners a unique innovative avenue for communicating with their target demographic audiences through viral on-line distribution as we build the channel‘s community.”

MUMBAI: Hurray! Holding Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese firm in wireless music distribution and other wireless value-added services has announced its decision to enter into a partnership agreement on wireless value-added services with MTV China.

Under this agreement, Hurray! will become the official partner for MTV China to deliver wireless value added services to MTV audience interactive with MTV programs, states an official release.

Commenting on the development, Hurray!‘s chairman and chief executive officer QD Wang said, ‘‘We are pleased to establish this important partnership with MTV China. Our wireless value-added services users have remarkably similar demographics with MTV audience. This partnership will not only give both companies a new way to better service its customers, but also further strengthen Hurray!‘s leadership in music related wireless products and services. We look forward to bringing best wireless music experience to MTV audience in China.‘‘

Hurray! offers music and music-related products such as ringtones, ringbacktones and truetones to mobile users in China through SMS, IVR, RBT, WAP, MMS and Java wireless value-added services platforms over mobile networks and through the Internet. The company also provides a range of other wireless value-added services to mobile users in China, including games, pictures and animation, community and other media and entertainment services.

BANGALORE: Following the unsuccessful launch of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F02) with INSAT-4C on board from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR (SDSC-SHAR), Sriharikota on 10 July, a Failure Analysis Committee has been constituted by Isro.

Former director of SDSC-SHAR and presently senior advisor at the Centre chairs the Committee, K Narayana will head the team. According to an Isro release, the 15 member Committee includes experts from academic and research institutions besides those from various Centres of ISRO.

The Committee will review the performance of all subsystems of GSLV-F02 from lift-off to the termination of flight, identify specific reasons for anomalies observed and recommend corrective measures for future course of action.

The Committee is expected to submit its report in a month‘s time.