ITV

Tag: IOL Broadband

  • IOL Broadband to soon offer 3 main bouquets on IPTV

    IOL Broadband to soon offer 3 main bouquets on IPTV

    MUMBAI: IPTV service platform IOL Broadband has announced that it is set to offer the three main channel bouquets available in India – Star, Set-Discovery OneAlliance and Zee Turner – totaling to over 60 Premium Pay IPTV channels along with 90 free-to-air channels.

    The announcement comes ahead of IOL’s “imminent” commercial deployment of IPTV in the country.

     
    This represents a watershed event in that a credible option to CAS & DTH has now become available for the first time in India, the company asserts.

    Company director AS Oberai said that with the introduction of commercial services by IOL IPTV on fibre and ADSL networks; India has joined an elite club of developed countries like Japan and Korea where IPTV has been recently introduced.

     
    IOL is deploying IPTV all over the country after integrating proven technology providers, a company release states.

  • IOL Broadband, India selects MagnaQuest for IPTV

    IOL Broadband, India selects MagnaQuest for IPTV

    MUMBAI: MagnaQuest has announced that its Convergent Customer Management and Billing (CMB) solution, MQSubscribeT has been selected by IOL Broadband, India for its subscriber billing, inventory and customer care operations. This contract encompasses IOL’s service deployments on their own network and deployment of Content Delivery Network (CDN) for MTNL and BSNL.

    An official annoucement states, integrations with network elements for provisioning, rating and billing of multiple services delivered over IP. MQSubscribeT to be used to bill value added services like video on Demand, VoIP services over its IP network, apart from the billing of regular services.

     
    IOL has launched IPTV services including broadcast TV, video on demand, broadband Internet, as part of its CDN project with MTNL. IOL intends to launch such services in several cities in India. MagnaQuest would work on all IOL deployments in India.

    MQSubscribeT will support IOL’s projected subscriber growth and launch of new value added services. To start with MQSubscribeT would be deployed integrated with SeaChange’s Video on Demand middleware chosen by IOL, adds the release.

     
    MagnaQuest managing director Vijay Debbad said, “I am glad that we have bagged the first project in the emerging domain of IPTV. The specialized knowledge we gained over the experience of implementing solutions for Triple Play services including Video and Data and VoIP domains, has enabled us to get here. We look forward to a very long association with IOL Broadband.”

    MagnaQuest is exhibiting its Convergent Customer Management and Billing solution, MQSubscribeTM and its capability to handle IPTV billing and mediation during IPTV World Forum, London on 5-7 March.

  • Times Group taking up stake in IOL Broadband

    Times Group taking up stake in IOL Broadband

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

    IOL, which has a content delivery affiliation contract with MTNL for IPTV in Mumbai, will make a preferential allotment of 500,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each to BCCL. “We will be making the allotment to BCCL at around Rs 100 per share,” says IOL Broadband director Oberai.

    IOL is also making a preferential allotment of 700,000 warrants to Maula Trading Company for Rs 70 million. “We will be in raising additional funds to expand our rollout. We plan to launch IPTV also in Bangalore with BSNL,” adds Oberai.

    IOL Broadband has already signed an IPTV deal with the Star network and is offering 24 channels. “We are in talks with other broadcasters. We are offering video on demand (VoD) services and are planning to ramp up our movie library. We currently have rights for 50 movies,” says Oberai.

    IOL is planning to increase the authorised share capital from Rs 500 million to Rs 70 million, divided into 70 million equity shares of Rs 10 each. The company also plans to increase the limit for foreign institutional investors to 49 per cent of its paid up equity share capital.

  • IOL Broadband to provide Star channels via IPTV

    IOL Broadband to provide Star channels via IPTV

    MUMBAI: IOL Broadband Ltd has signed an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) deal with the Star network.

    Following yesterday’s signing of the deal, all subscribers of the Mumbai based broadband company and those subscribing to the MTNL IPTV service will have access to all the channels from the Star bouquet.

    According to official statement, plans are underway to offer hundreds of channels on IPTV in the near future to the company / MTNL subscribers.

    “We are very pleased that Star TV has taken the lead in the IPTV Revolution, which is set to sweep the country. By signing up with IOL Broadband, Star TV will be the first bouquet of channels to be made available on the IOL / MTNL Broadband Networks,” IOL Broadband director Oberai said.

  • MTNL in IPTV deals with Aksh Optifibre, IOL Broadband

    MTNL in IPTV deals with Aksh Optifibre, IOL Broadband

    MUMBAI: Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd (MTNL) has signed content delivery network affiliation contracts with Aksh Optifibre Ltd and IOL Broadband Ltd, which would allow the state-owned telecom major to offer IPTV services to its subscribers.

    With this, MTNL has selected three franchisees for developing the content delivery platform. Time Broadband Services Pvt Ltd, India (TBSPL) was the first to have won the contract for both Delhi and Mumbai and has a seven-year non exclusive deal with MTNL.

    While MTNL has ensured a bank guarantee of Rs 5 million from Aksh Optifibre, IOL Broadband has guaranteed Rs 2.5 million. Aksh Optifibre has expressed intent to operate in Delhi and Mumbai while IOL’s interest is restricted to Mumbai at this stage.

    IOL Broadband plans to use US-based SeaChange for the IP video servers, storage and middleware, says a senior company executive. The digital set-top boxes (STBs) will be provided by UK-based Amino while the digital rights management solution will be from US-based Widevine.

    “We plan to invest $25 million in the early phase of the project. We have also an eye on extending to Delhi,” says the executive.

    Aksh Optifibre plans to use UTStarcom technology for its content delivery network, an MTNL official says. Bharti, which is conducting test runs in Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi with multiple vendors, had also used UTStarcom technology, including the headend and the digital STBs.

    “The idea of having multiple franchisees is to provide content flexibility to our subscribers,” says the MTNL official.

    Time Broadband, meanwhile, has tested 560 STBs and is ready for commercial launch. Says TBSPL managing director Sujata Dev, “We have already deployed 150 STBs in the subscriber homes. We are increasing the number of channels from 30 to 100 on the test run by the end of this month. Star and Zee have agreed to offer the pay channels for this as our content protection system in place.”

    Time Broadband, which has US-based Kasenna as its middleware vendor, while Verimatrix Inc is providing content protection solutions, has so far invested $3 million in the project.

    MTNL is employing ADSL 2+ technology for running its IPTV services. For the video part, the telecom giant will be using MPEG-4 compression technology.