Category: Software

MUMBAI: NDS, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, and CyberLink, a world leader in digital home software solutions, have partnered to integrate NDS VideoGuard PC technology with CyberLink’s PowerCinema home entertainment solution for PCs.

PowerCinema supports full TV services including live broadcast channels, digital video recording (DVR) functions, Electronic Program Guides (EPGs), secure content downloads, on-demand services, and Video-on Demand (VOD). By integrating the NDS VideoGuard® technology, PowerCinema enables operators to expand their services to PC owners, and extend their market reach.

The VideoGuard PC solution uses hardware-based security and a USB VideoGuard Key™ to provide a secure way of extending content usage rights beyond the set-top box. The VideoGuard PC solution ensures that you can extend your existing services such as broadcast TV and VOD to PCs. It also maintains secure storage for the ultimate solution of content protection convergence.

“Our partnership with such a ubiquitous PC technology as CyberLink PowerCinema presents a win-win situation for our pay-TV operator customers, PC vendors, and consumers”, said Joseph Deutsch, Vice President of Product Marketing, NDS. “Because VideoGuard combines CA and DRM to protect TV services as well as the licensing and content rights, operators can rely on secure content transfer between DVRs, PCs, and Portable Media Players (PMPs). Users can therefore enjoy their high-definition content on their PCs along with the flexibility to move it to PMP devices or CDs without compromising the content owner’s rights.”

Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink added: “CyberLink PowerCinema offers a complete TV solution for enjoying high-definition digital TV from satellite, cable and IPTV service providers. By working with NDS to integrate VideoGuard PC, we now support the world’s leading conditional access technology for premium pay-TV content. This collaboration delivers an extremely valuable solution for PC companies and pay-TV operators who can now expand TV’s reach onto a new PC platform within the digital home.”

“We are delighted to integrate VideoGuard PC into PowerCinema” continued Chang. “We have decided to partner with NDS, a company that has the industry’s best track record for conditional access and digital rights management. This ensures that pay-TV operators will see our “Cyberlink inside” PCs as a natural extension to their network and provide subscribers the freedom to enjoy the best services and content beyond the living room”.

This solution for the PC market follows NDS‘s earlier integration of VideoGuard Mobile and Electronic Service Guide (ESG) with CyberLink‘s Mobile DTV player, enabling any pay-TV operator to provide a true end-to-end secure multi-platform, multi-network service.

MUMBAI: Multi-system operators (MSOs) have in store 200,000 set-top boxes (STBs) and orders have been placed for importing more to meet the growing demand from consumers, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman Nripendra Misra tells Indiantelevision.com.

The offtake of STBs has been slow in Kolkata while there seems to be a healthy demand in Mumbai and Delhi, he adds. MSOs have seeded 135,000 boxes in Mumbai, 105,000 in Delhi and only 24,000 in Kolkata.

“Kolkata is slow to take off and our feedback is that most of the consumers are opting for free-to-air (FTA) package at this stage. But overall Cas (conditional access system) is getting accepted by the consumers,” says Misra.

Mumbai with 130,000 has the maximum number of STBs in stock while Delhi has 55,000 and Kolkata 20,000. But the major MSOs like Incablenet, Hathway Cable & Datacom and Wire & Wireless India Ltd (WWIL), who are operating in multiple cities, have no problems in shifting the boxes according to the consumer requirement.

Misra admits, though, that there are “reports of shortages in some pockets.” Consumers falling under the Cas areas did not order for the boxes earlier and there is a rush only after Cas got implemented which has led to this current situation, he clarifies.

The cable & broadcast regulator has called for a meeting with the MSOs on Friday to take stock of the Cas situation. The Trai will be sending teams to Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata from Monday to make spot assessments, Misra says.

MUMBAI: Research and Markets has announced the addition of Wireless Broadband Services: The 4G Cellular Industry (part three of three) to their offering.

According to the study, the cellular industry invested over $13.7 billion (USD) in spectrum auctions. Today‘s cost for a cellular service with an average data communications service of 130 Kbps is about $80 a month.

To be competitive with the advances in WiMAX and Wi-Fi, the fee for 4G services will need to be lower than the cellular companies expect.

A better strategy for 4G operators would be to offer lower speeds with more capacity to handle more users as a bargain thereby fully loading the networks with subscribers.

Usage based offerings with specific services, offering niche services at moderate speeds, may turn out to be the most effective and profitable method to roll-out 4G.

Key findings of the study are

– The 4G services will need more MVNE‘s to support the OSS/BSS infrastructure.

– Revenues will reach $2.5 billion, $9.1 billion for cellular data and small business DSL respectively by 2011 Small business spending on internet access will grow to $8.2 billion by 2009, up from $4.4 billion in 2005, largely due to adoption of DSL and higher bandwidth services.

– Spending on wireless data services will outpace all other categories in the SOHO segment, growing to nearly $2.2 billion in 2009, up from $0.47 billion in 2005.

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.