ITV

Category: Software

  • TRAI notifies draft DAS tariff & interconnect rules

    TRAI notifies draft DAS tariff & interconnect rules

    NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has made life a little simpler for MSOs. Last weekend (20 September 2013) it notified the amendments to interconnection regulations applicable for Digital Addressable Systems (DAS) and also to the tariff order for DAS the drafts of which it had released for industry consultation on 4 June 2013. 

    It has some further changes following industry feedback. Amongst these include: 

    * The removal of the minimum channel carrying capacity of 500 channels for MSOs.

    * It has clarified that subscribers can either opt for channels on a-la-carte basis or bouquet or combination of both, as per their choice. 

    * It has disallowed MSOs from seeking a channel from a broadcaster while at the same time seeking carriage fees from it. 

    * It has forbidden MSOs from charging placement fees. 

     The amendments in the Telecommunications (Broadcasting and Cable) Services (Fourth) (Addressable) Systems) Tariff (Second Amendment) Order 2013 modify the ‘twin conditions‘ that regulate the a-la-carte rate of channels vis-a-vis the bouquet rates at retail level protecting subscribers’ interests. It also clarifies the position that subscribers can either opt for channels on a-la-carte basis or a bouquet or a combination of both, as per their choice. 

    Considering the fact that the operators would be required to make appropriate changes, both in pricing and packaging, the Authority has decided to make the ‘twin conditions’, prescribed through this tariff order mandatory with effect from 1 January 2014. However, during the period from the notification of this tariff order till 31 December 2013, operators would be required to offer channels, complying to either of the two conditions, specified in the ‘twin conditions’. 

    The operators are, however, free to make their offering, complying to the ‘twin conditions’, if they wish to do so before 1 January 2014. 

    Further, in case a channel forms part of more than one bouquet then the above conditions will have to be satisfied for all such bouquets. Further, if the operator offers discounts to its subscribers on bouquet rates, the above said ‘twin conditions’ should also be satisfied with such discounted bouquet rates. 

    Therefore, the Authority felt it appropriate to extend the a-la-carte provisioning of channels to cover both the FTA and pay channels carried over the network of an operator.

    Accordingly, vide the tariff amendment order dated 30 April 2012, it was mandated that every operator providing services to its subscribers using an addressable system shall offer or cause to offer all channels, whether pay or FTA, offered by it to its subscribers on a-la-carte basis. In sync with this provision, the word “pay” has been deleted from the heading of clause 6 and also from the clause 6(2) of the principle Tariff order dated 27 July 2010. With the removal of word ‘pay’, an operator can specify a minimum commitment period, not exceeding three months for both ‘pay’ and ‘FTA” channels, subscribed on a-la-carte basis. 

    The TRAI has noted that “it has been observed that, some of the DTH service providers have been imposing pre-condition for subscribing to a particular bouquet before add-on-bouquets and/or a-la-carte channel(s) can be subscribed. The Authority is of the view that such conditions are unreasonable and the consumer should be free to choose any combination of the channel(s) or bouquet(s) offered by the operator. In the tariff amendment order dated 30 April 2012, a provision was made which allowed the DAS subscriber to subscribe to basic service tier or basic service tier and one or more pay channel or only free to air channels or only pay channels or pay channels and free to air channels at his option i.e. consumer is free to choose any combination of the channel(s) or bouquet(s) offered by the operator. 

    Accordingly, sub-clause (4) of clause 6, applicable for addressable platforms other than DAS, has been suitably amended and a proviso has been added to bring in parity amongst various addressable platforms as well as to ensure that consumers of these platforms are on equal footing. 

    The Interconnection Regulation applicable for DAS has the following safeguards with regard to charging of carriage fee: carriage fee to be transparently declared in the RIO of the MSO; the carriage fee is to be uniformly charged; the carriage fee not to be revised upwardly for a minimum period of 2 years, and the details of the carriage fee are to be filed with the Authority and the Authority has a right to intervene in cases it deems fit. 

    The Authority has decided that the phrase “having the prescribed channel capacity” appearing in sub-regulation 3(2) of the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Digital Addressable Cable Systems) Regulations 2013  should be deleted as the same will have no relevance with the deletion of the minimum channel carrying capacity criteria from the regulations.

    For the time being, the Authority has decided not to specify the capacity to carry a minimum number of channels by the MSOs, on the expectation that market dynamics will take care of the emerging situation. However, in the event the Authority notices that the market dynamics are not allowed to function freely by the service providers, resulting in creation of an artificial capacity constraint, it will intervene appropriately. 

    Analysing the issue of placement fee, TRAI has noted that the DAS technology provides for an Electronic Programme Guide wherein the channels being carried on an MSO’s network can be arranged in a simple, easy to understand, manner so that the subscriber can easily go through this guide and select the channel of his choice instead of flipping through all the channels.

    The genre-wise display of channels in the EPG, where all the channels of a particular genre are listed under relevant genre, has been mandated through regulations. Moreover, in digital systems, signal quality of the channels is independent of the placement of the channel. 

    Further, the Interconnection Regulation already has a provision (sub-regulation 3 (11)) that if an MSO, before providing access to its network, insists on placement of the channel in a particular slot or bouquet, such precondition amounts to imposition of unreasonable terms. Thus, adequate provisions already exist in the regulations. Accordingly, sub-regulation 11A of regulation 3 of the interconnection regulation has been deleted. 

    The amendments follow a judgment of the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Arbitration Tribunal and a consequent fresh consultation paper by TRAI and reactions on it from stakeholders. 

     

  • McDowell extends the ‘Spirit of Friendship’ through Karaoke app

    McDowell extends the ‘Spirit of Friendship’ through Karaoke app

    MUMBAI: Over the last four years, the McDowell’s No.1 has been addressing its young Indian target audience with its positioning as the No.1 spirit of friendship with the intent to add cheer to moments of camaraderie and friendships amongst the youth.

    It has come up with an integrated approach of communication wherein it is important to actively engage with the youth. Music has always been at the forefront of the young Indian’s favorite hobbies. Hence, Karaoke became McDowell’s No.1’s perfect opportunity to reach out to its consumers.

    The McDowell’s No.1 came up with a Karaoke App which is an easy to download mobile App across all platforms. The aim of the app is to create moments involving the participation of friends whenever and wherever, bringing to life the role of McDowell’s No.1 as the No.1 spirit of friendship. McDowell’s No.1 leveraged its brand ambassadors Chris Gayle and his friends – actor Purab Kohli and Indian Idol Meiyang Chang – to come up with a fun commercial.

    The app is meant for a group of friends who want to have a good time regardless of the time or place feels Vipul Thakkar

    DDB Mudra South ECD Vipul Thakkar said, “The McDowell’s No.1 Karaoke App is meant for a group of friends who want to have a good time regardless of the time or place. With this app you don’t need to be at a party, or a specific venue, and neither do you have to be a great singer to enjoy karaoke. And what better way to communicate this than to show a hard-hitting batsman become a singing sensation overnight and belting out totally different kind of hits from his app.”

  • Online video advertising is gaining popularity in US: comScore

    Online video advertising is gaining popularity in US: comScore

    MUMBAI: The comScore online video rankings have shown that while the number of content pieces watched online has dipped but online video advertising is getting popular.

    The monthly ranking of the online video market showed that 188.5 million Americans watched 46.7 billion online content videos which attracted 22.8 billion video ad views. This compared with 187 million viewers consuming more than 48 billion online content videos with 19.6 billion video ad views.

    As ever YouTube-driven Google sites dominated, boasting the highest average engagement among the top ten properties, taking 167 million unique viewers. The month’s big news in terms of properties though was AOL which captured the number two spot with 71.2 million views, up 57.9 million in July, displacing Facebook to third place with 62.2 million even though the social network added just under a million more viewers. Next was NDN with 50.7 million and VEVO with 49.4 million. August 2013 also saw 46.7 billion video content views with Google sites generating the highest number at 17.4 billion, followed by AOL with 992 million and Facebook with 803 million.

    All of this content activity was the driver for an increasingly robust online video where 87 per cent of the US internet audience viewed online video for which the duration of the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes with the average online content video rolling in at 5.2 minutes. Video ads accounted for a third of all videos viewed and 3.4 per cent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

    Google sites contributed 3.2 billion video ad impressions out of the total of 22.8 billion for the month. Adap.tv came in second with more than 2.4 billion ads, followed by BrightRoll Platform with 2.4 billion and LiveRail.com with 2.2 billion. Time spent watching video ads was 8.5 billion minutes, with BrightRoll Platform and Adap.tv delivering the highest duration of video ads at 1.1 billion minutes each. Video ads reached 56 per cent of the total US population an average of 132 times during the month. The recently enriched Hulu over-the-top (OTT) service delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 71.

  • Job-hunters beware of digital footprint: Study

    Mumbai: As per the conference of the State’s Education and Training Boards, employers asking candidates their personal accounts on the social networking sites may be a denial of a candidate’s human rights but is becoming a trend.


    The inaugural conference of the Education and Training Boards of Ireland, successors to the Vocational Education Committees, also warned that teachers too could find themselves easily compromised by what they post on Facebook or other social media sites.


    The conference stressed on the fact that the digital footprint could embarrass the user, even if the user was not posting and did not have social media profiles. An occasion where a student googled the term “Bernadette Johns” and was presented with a list of pornographic sites was stated as an example by one of the lecturer.


    The Education and Training Boards in Ireland comprises 16 separate boards which replaced the VECs and Fas training centers on 1July, this year.

  • Shopyourworld.com raises first round of investments

    Mumbai:  Shopyourworld.com, a shopping portal showcasing products and promotional offers from the US and UK market, has announced its series ‘A’ investment.


    The undisclosed funding was raised from the Singapore Governments’ National Research Foundation, a department directly operated by the Prime Minister’s office along with two leading Asia focused venture capital firms, iGlobe Partners and WaveMaker Labs. The company is expecting to raise a second round of funding of $15-20 million in the next six months.


    With the series “A” funding, they are addressing the grievances of few customers whose orders were not delivered in time due to international shipping and logistical issues. The funds are primarily being utilised for executing ShopYourWorld.com expansion plan of building further operational and procurement capabilities, raising brand awareness, enhancing technology along with service levels and customer care quality.


    The company which is based in Singapore with wholly owned subsidiaries in the US, UK and India, is primarily focused on importing products and brands from the US and UK and delivering them to its customers in India. It offers a range of over one million products from leading global markets. ShopYourWorld.com gives access to exclusive international products otherwise unavailable to the Indian consumer, enabling the customer to choose from a wide range of products and brands from developed markets. 


     The company has uniquely constructed specific algorithms to calculate product pricing, inclusive of shipping costs, exchange rates, customs duty and taxes in real time. All prices seen on the website are final, delivered to the customer’s door. Additionally the website utilises a three-tier server architecture enabling it to host a vast number of products at any given time.


    The e-commerce market in India is expected to grow by 33 per cent to reach Rs 62,967 crore by the end of 2013 as per the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International report. The e-commerce market was valued at Rs 47,349 crore in December 2012.

  • FoxyMoron bags digital marketing duties of Celkon Mobiles

    FoxyMoron bags digital marketing duties of Celkon Mobiles

    MUMBAI: Celkon has assigned its digital marketing duties to an independent digital ideas and media solutions agency, FoxyMoron.

    The mandate will be handled by the recently opened NCR branch of FoxyMoron and it includes the independent management of the mobile brand’s presence on social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter.

    On the decision of appointing FoxyMoron as its digital agency, Celkon head digital management Pradeep Yerraguntla said, “We are happy to associate ourselves with FoxyMoron to drive all our digital communications objectives. The young, dynamic team brings extensive digital expertise that will help us meet our business needs. At the core of our marketing strategies is the need for a detailed strategic and creative alliance to take Celkon Mobiles, the brand forward to the highest level.”

    Currently, Celkon caters to the growing s needs of mobile users across the world by creating a new generation of mobile phones that is quality personified, loaded with user-oriented features and powered by the latest mobile technology.

    With the shift on to the digital platform, FoxyMoron has conceptualised and recently executed the ‘Campus-O-Logy’ campaign, aimed at encouraging young college students to enjoy their time on campus with the newly launched Campus Series smartphones A20, A60, A63.

    FoxyMoron business head – North Akshay Gurnani said, “This is a great opportunity for us to work with a brand that has a strong foot hold in the Mobile phones industry. The mobile range on offer by Celkon is a perfect combination of fashion and purpose. Our aim will be to leverage their innovative products to build conversations with young consumers as they enjoy experimenting with exciting innovative technology products. The Campus-O-Logy campaign will look to convert regular mobile users to evangelists of the Campus series by Celkon Mobile.”

    The latest win adds to the growing list of clients handled by FoxyMoron which includes the L’Oreal India Group (Maybelline New York, Garnier, L’Oreal Paris, Kerastase), AXN India, McVitie’s India, Castrol India, Rajasthan Royals, SAB Miller (Foster’s, Miller High Life, Knock Out), WWM Group (Part of the Times of India Group and includes Femina, BBC Good Homes) and FCUK among many others.

  • Verizon Terremark cloud gives Panviva a push in service-delivery time

    MUMBAI: Panviva has chosen Verizon Terremark’s private cloud to transition its flagship enterprise solution, Support Point. The decision has helped facilitate an important strategic direction for the company’s chief information officer – transforming Support Point into a SaaS-ready solution that easily scales to Panviva’s growing global customer base.

     

    As a result, Panviva will now deliver Support Point to customers 90 per cent faster than before, enabling the company to offer its services at a more competitive price point and also frees up employees to focus on the customer experience, rather than the delivery process. 

     

    Support Point offers real-time guided navigation to improve efficiency and accuracy in modern contact center and customer service environments, as well as highly regulated or complex work environments. Support Point guides leading organisations through complex policies and systems, and helps them to outperform their competitors and reduce operating costs, while maximising the end-customer experience. 

     

    “We have over 200,000 users in 37 countries who count on us to deliver a product that adds genuine value to their service levels and operations,” said Panviva’s chief information officer Ben Cordeiro. “This requires us to be relentless in seeking out new technologies and innovations that will become that next differentiator, the thing that carves out another 10 per cent from end-customer wait times or adds another way to simplify compliance for end users. Most importantly however, all this needs to happen seamlessly. “In Verizon, we have found a partner that is not only helping us make a measurable difference to our service delivery, but has also provided us with a secure and globally scalable platform that is coupled with the transformation of our product and international expansion of our business,” said Cordeiro.

  • Aircel launches an e-book store ‘BookMate’ for its customers

    MUMBAI: Aircel, one of India’s leading telecom players, launched an e-book store ‘Aircel BookMate’ for its customers. Aircel BookMate is a one-stop-shop for avid readers and book lovers to browse, store, download and read books, magazines and comics, on their smartphones, tablets and PCs. The e-book store will enable users to access a comprehensive catalogue of fiction and non-fiction bestsellers, magazines, comics, biographies, classics, children’s stories and reference books, as well as a range of titles available for free download. The e-book store will also have a variety of books available in vernacular languages.

     

    Aircel chief marketing officer Anupam Vasudev said, “India is an emerging market for digital books as e-book sales have risen exponentially in the recent time. Digital devices will play in important part in how people buy and consume books. According to a study by Juniper Research, globally about 30 per cent of e-books will be purchased on tablets, 15 per cent will be purchased on smartphones and roughly 55 per cent will be purchased on e-readers by 2016. The popularity of e-books have generated a perfect opportunity for publishers, book retailers, mobile network operators, device manufacturers and even authors to supply, deliver and monetize electronic book content across the Internet and mobile networks. Thus, as Aircel continues to build on its commitment to provide content for data users, we have introduced our own e-book store ‘Aircel BookMate’ which gives our customers a myriad of e-books & e-magazines to choose from in various categories.”

     

    Aircel BookMate will be available on WAP, Web and App platforms (Google Play) and customers can avail its benefits by registering on www.aircelbookmate.com. A well-established Points System has been introduced for users to buy e-books from the website. The users can also purchase points using their Aircel account balance. The content library is constantly being added with bestsellers from leading publishers across the world. It includes titles from some of the top publishers including Syndication Today (India Today), Outlook, Diamond Comics (Chacha Chaudhary), Chandamama & Media Transasia. 

  • VivaConnect debuts ‘LiveTalk’ with Modi’s speech

    MUMBAI: While live events and gatherings are rejoiced by those who attend it, others who are left behind due to unavailability of tickets, far off destinations, no invitation, etc. Even though the reasons may be plenty, none is good enough for those who wish to be a part of it. Thus, with an aim to connect individuals to a live event VivaConnect has unveiled a service called LiveTalk.

     

    LiveTalk allows one to do audio streaming of live events over a simple phone call, wherein one has to call in a published phone number and experience it without any internet, smartphone nor a subscription to special or premium add-on services.

     

    The service was launched on 15 September and was deployed for BJP‘s Ex-Serviceman Rally held at Rewari, Haryana. The service was greatly appreciated as it connected over 1,00,000 callers across India with Narendra Modi‘s speech.

     

    BJP partnered with innovative firms like Zipdial and VivaConnect and offered a unique mobile connectivity model between vast mass of mobile users and BJP Leadership. “On the launch day more than 1 lakh callers dialed in 02245014501 to hear Narendra Modi‘s live speech at Ex-Servicemen Rally in Rewari.” says BJP IT Cell head Arvind Gupta.

     

    VivaConnect MD Vikram Raichura said, “We are honored to be associated with BJP and showcase one more possibility on how by leveraging mobility one can extend overall reach and even cater the far flung areas to achieve mass involvement on national & international scale.”

     

    LiveTalk is beneficial for covering political meets, social events, musical concerts, business seminars, award shows, sports events, educational conventions, etc. It can connect over a million callers during a three hour event. 

  • Datawind aligns with TES India to provide free educational resources

     

    NEW DELHI: Datawind, which revolutionised digital educational technology with its low cost Ubislate range of PC Tablets, has signed a strategic partnership with TES India http://www.tesindia.com.

     

    With this strategic partnership Datawind would be able to offer a huge library of 5,00,000 ready-to-use teaching material to its end users. Datawind is targeting teachers’ community via this strategic partnership. Teachers and institutions can choose to teach their students absolutely free of cost by using this library. They can also teach their students an international syllabus, which can help them keep in sync with global standards.

     

    Datawind CEO and president Suneet Singh Tuli said: “We aim to bring a PC Tablet for every student in India, but the hardware itself is not enough to serve the purpose of empowerment. This partnership will allow Datawind users to access high quality, interactive and engaging educational content for free. Also this partnership will strengthen teacher’s community so that they can deliver quality education which is a need of the hour by Young India.”

     

    An application created for the purpose will have learning materials available for several courses like Bachelor of Arts, B.Com, B. Ed, general awareness, entire CBSE content, educational presentations, discussion on social topics and many more. One can even learn and teach Sanskrit online by use of this application!

     

    There is content available for special need of special children which will help teachers to understand different cases.

     

    TES is the world’s largest and 105 years-old online community by the teachers for the teachers.

     

     TES general manager Sachin Kapoor said: “We are delighted to be working with Datawind. We are committed to driving excellence in the education sector, and this partnership will help teachers to access the very best classroom resources – lesson plans, assessments, worksheets, presentations and more”.  

     

    The most amazing feature is that teachers can find employment for themselves and on the other hand students will be able to locate a great career guide for themselves too as it has Jobs services on the portal that is not chargeable.

     

    There is a selection of the most popular lesson plans covering math, English, geography, history, science, physical and health education and expressive arts. You can download as many of these lesson plans as you like for free – all you have to do is join TES India. Registration is free and takes less than a minute,” added Kapoor.