ITV

Tag: MTNL

  • 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.

  • Indiagames launches Games on Demand cyber cafe partnership program

    Indiagames launches Games on Demand cyber cafe partnership program

    MUMBAI: Indiagames has announced the launch of its Games on Demand partnership program for Cyber Cafes. This initiative from Indiagames will help over 100,000 private internet cafes in India compete with organised players in the market.

    Says Indiagames founder & CEO Vishal Gondal, “Besides broadband subscribers and home PC users, there is a large percentage of people in India who access the internet through internet cafes. With the launch of the Games on Demand Cyber Café Program, we hope to take a world class gaming experience to the masses.”

    When it comes to gaming in India, there are a host of issues like software piracy and the high prices of gaming software. Games on Demand is a unique offering that aims to successfully address all these issues. In addition to access to licensed original games, the Games on Demand service will prove to be a new source of income, as well as a great customer retention and loyalty tool for internet cafes, states an official release.

    Games-on-Demand is a unique service which enables a user to choose and play from a catalogue of over 300 games without ever needing to purchase or install them on the local PC. Games on Demand features popular international games like Age of Empires II, Brian Lara’s Cricket, IGI 2 Covert Strike and Toca Race Driver 2 amongst others. New games will be added every month thus offering consumers something to look forward to, the release adds.

    Games on Demand is currently available to home internet users via Indiagames’ partnership with leading broadband service providers like Airtel, MTNL, Tata VSNL, and You Telecom. The service will also be soon launched on BSNL which has India’s largest broadband subscriber base.

    The Games on Demand retail initiative from Indiagames will be supported by a host of advertising and publicity initiatives as well as on-ground events. The company is in the process of starting an online advertising campaign to support the initiative. Currently, the service has over 100 games on offer at just Rs 225 per month. These games will cost almost Rs100,000 at retail prices for legal software. Indiagames has tied up with leading publishers like Microsoft, Codemasters, Playfirst, Atari and Activision amongst others for this service, the release further adds.

  • ‘Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses’ hits mobile content in India

    ‘Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses’ hits mobile content in India

    MUMBAI: Mobile content based on Barbie’s latest movie, Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses has been launched across mobile networks in India including Hutch, Airtel, Idea, BSNL, MTNL, Reliance and Tata.

    Wallpapers, animations, themes, mono tones, poly tones, SMS tones, true tones, video clips and MMS Clips / M-cards will also be available and can be accessed by any GPRS enabled phone, informs an official release.

    Speaking on Barbie’s latest marketing initiative Mattel Toys India managing director Sanjay Luthra said, “The range of 12 Dancing Princesses: the dancing Barbie doll, the other doll characters, a musical castle, a stretch-limo Carriage etc. supported by lifestyle consumer products – takes every little girl deeper into the world of brand ‘Barbie’ and enhances her magical experience and interaction with her favourite Doll. Mobile content is one more avenue to reach out to parents’ who are trying to keep up with their tech-savvy Kids!”

    He added, “While Experiential Marketing has always been an important element of our Brand’s Strategy; 360 Degree programs such as these, merely help to build our consumer’s loyalty and inclination to “live in” Barbie’s world with Barbie and for parents who want to teach their children, traditional family values and togetherness that that we respect as part of our Indian beliefs, Barbie brings alive the same, through story and example.”

    Speaking on the mobile content offering the digital content production and distribution company, Rajshri Media (P) Limited managing director Rajjat A. Barjatya said, “We have been enthralled at the response to Barbie mobile content over the last one year and are delighted to release yet another property on the mobile phone. In fact very soon, we have plans to bring Barbie a lot more close to you, by launching the Barbie MobiWorld on our short code and a series of mobile games too. We are quite confident that the new initiatives we are taking, along with Mattel, will be well accepted.”

    In addition, this entertainment property is also supported by lifestyle consumer products such as: the animation movie content on VCD and DVD from Universal Pictures and distributed locally by SaReGaMa, and other licensed consumer products such as storybooks from Euro Kids and Sterling Publishers, role play toys and costumes, My Size jigsaw puzzles and tableware from Mahindra Intertrade , play cosmetics from Magicwell, bags from Genius Leathercraft, innerwear from A-Klass Fashions, nightwear from SD-Lounge and bed linen from Portico, adds the release.

  • Cellebrum develops contest for BSNL, MTNL

    Cellebrum develops contest for BSNL, MTNL

    MUMBAI: Cellebrum, a MCorpGlobal group company and an integrated telecom VAS solutions provider has announced its tie-up with BSNL and MTNL in North India to launch its Kaun Banega Lakhpati contest. The contest, developed by Cellebrum, aims to provide a rewarding experience for subscribers of the telecom operators.

    Subscribers of BSNL and MTNL will be able to win total cash prizes worth Rs 5,00,000 (Four prizes of 1,00,000 each, 20 prizes of Rs 4900 each) as part of the contest. The contest will be available for all GSM and landline subscribers of BSNL and MTNL from 15 October to 30 November, states an official release.

    While playing the contest, the subscriber will have to correctly answer five simple questions. However, subscribers can participate in the contest as many times as they wish to. Winners of the contest will be chosen by Cellebrum after a lucky draw of the eligible subscribers who managed to correctly answer all questions in the contest, the release adds.

    Speaking about the contest, Cellebrum COO Saket Agarwal said, “BSNL and MTNL are two of the largest telecom conglomerates in the country. We believe that our association with these operators will help us reach the virgin territories of this country, vis-à-vis the value added services market. Moreover, with the festive season of Diwali in the offing, we believe that a contest like Kaun Banega Lakhpati will definitely touch millions of aspiring individuals who want to make it big in a short span of time and we are sure that the contest will be received with great enthusiasm across all telecom circles where it is being launched.”

    “At Cellebrum, we have always prioritised on providing new, innovative and rewarding services to our customers and keeping them at the forefront of the revolution,” Agarwal added.

    How does the contest work?
    BSNL/ MTNL Users

    Through IVRS: Users in Haryana and Delhi will have to dial 126300 to access the service while subscribers in Punjab and UP (W) will have to dial 12630000 to participate in the contest.

    Charges as follows: 
    BSNL Mobile/GSM subscribers: Rs 3.60 / minute
    BSNL Landline subscribers: Rs 1.20 / 30 secs
    MTNL Mobile/GSM subscribers: Rs 4 / minute
    MTNL Landline subscribers: Re 1 / 30 secs
    Through SMS [for Mobile subscribers in Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, UP (E) and UP(W)]: Users are required to register for the contest by sending SMS “KBL” to 6300 and follow the instructions thereafter.

    Charges will be levied as follows: 
    Messages to 6300 for contest will be charged at Rs 2 per SMS.

  • MTNL to expand IPTV service by 74 channels

    MTNL to expand IPTV service by 74 channels

    MUMBAI: State-owned telecom major MTNL has added 74 channels after the initial launch of 26 free-to-air channels, earlier this month as part of its IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) service. 

    MTNL had signed a deal with Time Broadband Services and its Israeli partner Optibase to develop and handle the content delivery network for its IPTV services.

    The state-owned telecom provider recently launched IPTV services, through Time Broadband, utilizing Optibase’s IPTV MGW 5100 platforms for its digital IPTV head-end operation at the company’s network operating centre, according to an official statement.

    Time Broadband will have Israel-based Infogate Online as its middleware vendor while Verimatrix Inc will provide content protection solutions. The digital headend will be from Optibase. 
    Together with Time Broadband, Optibase is enabling the launch of the IPTV services in Delhi.

    Service provider, Time Broadband is geared up to deploy IPTV services on both TV & PC delivery, through network and internet service providers across the country. 

    Following the initial deployment of Optibase MGW 5100 IP video head-ends providing 26 channels of Telco-grade streaming, Optibase will now be supplying an additional 74 channels, totaling 100 MPEG-4 Part 10 H.264/AVC channels.

    “During the initial deployment, Optibase demonstrated their extensive IPTV know-how relating to H.264 AVC. We were impressed by the quality of the Optibase solution and the superior level of service. Therefore we decided to select the Optibase MGW 5100 integrated digital head ends for the full-scale commercial launch,” said Time Broadband Services’ MD Sujata Dev.

    Optibase CFO Danny Lustiger stated, “We are delighted with the success of our first installation of Time Broadband at MTNL Delhi Network and look forward to a long-term collaboration with our globally eminent CDN partners, driving the large scale deployment of IPTV in India.”

    IPTV is a system wherein digital quality television service is delivered to consumers using broadband connections.

  • Intec to supply Convergent Billing to MTNL

    Intec to supply Convergent Billing to MTNL

    MUMBAI: India’s largest telecom and internet service providers Mahanagar Telephone Nigam LTD(MTNL), has struck a multi-million dollar deal with Intec, a leading software vendor to carriers operating fixed, mobile and next-generation networks, to supply its convergent billing systems.

    Intec supplies billing software solutions to over 60 per cent of the world’s top 100 telecoms carriers and is one of the world’s fastest growing major business and operations support systems vendors( BSS/OSS ).

    MTNL has a subscriber base of over 5 million in India. And Intec Convergent Billing (Singl.eView) will form a key part of the carrier’s convergence strategy for rapid penetration and growth via innovative, next generation communications services in India.

    “Intec Convergent Billing is a proven solution in many of the world’s largest wireless, fixed, cable and IP carriers, supporting many millions of subscribers in our largest accounts. We’re proud to be selected by MTNL for this important project, in a very competitive tender, and we look forward to supporting its growth and development plans in the Indian market,” said Intec CEO Kevin Adams.

    Intec Chief Operations Officer, Asia Pacific, Norm Halvorson added, “Intec is proud to work with MTNL to deliver high quality, leading edge technology, robust performance and the benefits of next generation services to a wider spectrum of the Indian market.”

    Intec’s products, solutions and services have been chosen by over 60 per cent of the world’s top 100 carriers. Intec invests heavily in both its core technology and its customer service capabilities on a global basis, including, for example, its expanding technical facilities in India which are delivering and supporting successful OSS/BSS projects to operators in India as well as across the world.

  • Time Broadband achieves Asian landmark in IPTV

    NEW DELHI: The Mumbai-headquartered Time Broadband Services Pvt Ltd might not ring a bell immediately, but this media technology company has achieved an Asian landmark.

    Commissioning of a fully integrated content delivery network over H.264 AVC Revision 10 of MPEG4 format as an end-to-end solution on Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd (MTNL) MPLS core and ADSL 2+ access system is the first of its kind in Asia.

    This hi-tech implementation was first recorded on 4 July 2006 at Cavalier Telecom in the USA by Kasenna, which also happens to be Time Broadband’s technology provider.

    “Considering the few weeks gap, the achievement of having a total integrated solution on an emerging technology is certainly a landmark in Indian broadband domain where more than 100 TV channels are to be delivered via digital multi-cast to PC and TV sets by our technology partners,” said Time Broadband MD and CEO Sujata Dev.

    What this means in layman’s language and where does the
    government-controlled telecom company MTNL fit into the scenario?

    MTNL, providing services in Delhi and Mumbai, has associated with Time Broadband to provide IPTV at affordable rates to the telco’s consumers. The services are slated to be commercially flagged off later this year.

    According to Dev, apart from the telephony and internet services, a MTNL subscriber can also subscribe to TV channels, which can be seen either on the consumer’s PC or television set.

    The charges for subscribing to over 100 channels and internet services are likely to be in the region of Rs 400 per month (exclusive of charges for telephone usage).

    Time Broadband, which in no way is connected to the Times of India group, did a trial simulation of the technology in Mumbai on 14 January 2005, the day on which a nation-wide launch of broadband was held by MTNL and its sibling Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).

    On 21 November 2005, Time Broadband signed up formally with MTNL for providing the content delivery network (CDN) and do content aggregation for MTNL to enable rich-media content delivery.

    MTNL, set up on 1 April 1986 by the government, has a customer base of approximately 5.92 million as on March 2006. The government presently holds 56.25 per cent stake in the company.

    Time Broadband, where Sujata Dev’s husband Amit works as the chief tech mentor, has been initially funded by promoters and has received $12 million mix of equity and debt from global investors to move into full-scale rollout plan to 600 tri-band customers shortly in Delhi.

    Next stage of integration would cover uni-cast or the interactive on-demand media delivery, which is to be completed shortly.

    “In IPTV domain, a major challenge faced by a operator is the integration of the CDN components like middleware, content protection, video-on-demand services and head-end encoding components with set-top box. We could successfully integrate the whole system in past six months along with inputs from our technology partners,” said Dev.

    A unique aspect of the whole venture involving MTNL is the content protection or guarding against piracy.

    The content protection technology used by Time Broadband for MTNL’s IPTV service is being provided by Verimatrix and is a mix of session-based water marking and clone-detection capabilities.

    “Broadcasters like Star, Sony and Zee have approved the content protection system of Verimatrix as also major studios of Hollywood as a key defense against the vandalism of piracy due to the forensic tracking, which is invisible but un-destructible,” Dev explained.

    The video-marking added to 128 bit PKI as per AES norms would offer threshold level of protection to all content. The achievement of technical solution is one hurdle crossed but the issues of Regulation and availability of volume based H.264 STB with ‘session-based water-marking’ is still a challenge to be overcome before commercial launch, Dev adds.

    However, a major hurdle in rollout of IPTV services in India is the regulatory body Trai’s present ambivalence on the status of such service.

    Telecom Regulatgory Auhtority of India (Trai) is yet to decide whether to classify IPTV as a television service or make it part of telecom.

    Both MTNL and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (the biggest telecom service provider in India in terms of reach) control over 95 per cent of last mile
    connectivity in India.

    The remaining miniscule is with some private players, which are finding themselves handicapped to introduce large scale broadband services in the country in the absence of last mile connectivity.

    Though the set-top box needed to access the MTNL Tri-band service is being imported by Time Broadband for approximately $ 160, in the initial stages the boxes are being subsidised to catch consumers.

    Time Broadband would build and own all the elements of this massive city-wide content delivery network with service delivery platform to operate uni-cast and multi-cast services of rich-media, apart from critical sub-system and peripheral devices.

  • 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.

  • Mobile2win rolls out ‘Anthony Kaun Hai’ game on mobile

    Mobile2win rolls out ‘Anthony Kaun Hai’ game on mobile

    MUMBAI: Mobile2win has announced the launch of Anthony Kaun Hai (AKH) mobile game. They have launched the game in an exclusive tie-up with Nikhil Panchamiya, the producer of the film. The game has been developed in-house using the latest Java technology.

    Mobile2win India country head Rajiv Hiranandani said, “Indian consumers are looking for entertainment at their fingertips and mobile2win has recognised that and has thus brought AKH to the consumers. The growth of Bollywood related content is only going to increase with the increased cellular penetration levels into smaller cities and we are well positioned to tap into that.”

    Panchamiya added, “We are very optimistic with this tie-up with Mobile2Win. The mobile phone has become an extra entertainment channel for today’s youth and we are very keen to explore this further with the Mobile2Win partnership.”

    The Anthony Kaun Hai mobile game and content can be downloaded onto any GPRS enabled handsets via the Mobile2Win zone through major mobile operators like Airtel, Hutch, BPL, Idea, Spice, Reliance, BSNL, MTNL, Tata etc covering all circles across the country. This content has also been made available to leading media entities for downloads to their consumers.

    Anthony Kaun Hai game has been devised keeping in mind the new generation of mobile users. As in the movie, Champ (Arshad Warsi) has a visitor, who’s carrying a nasty looking gun. Master Madan (Sanjay Dutt) has come to put a bullet in Champ’s head. If Champ doesn’t act fast, he’ll end up with a hole in his head. The game’s aim is to help Champ escape and quickly. There are 10 levels. Arshad starts at the top floor of the hotel and ends when he manages to slip out of the lobby. There are more walls in the higher levels. Each level is a different floor of the hotel.

    Every few times Master Madan makes a move, a blurb appears containing one of his dialogues from the movie appears such as Anthony Kaun Hai? Champ will respond accordingly depending on the text, which appears. When Madan says, Anthony kaun hai?, he replies “Main Nahi.”

    Alternatively, a pop up can appear. Champ’s pop up will show a picture of a scared Arshad Warsi accompanied by text.

  • Optibase brings turnkey IPTV solutions to Broadcast Asia 2006

    Optibase brings turnkey IPTV solutions to Broadcast Asia 2006

    MUMBAI: Optibase Ltd., a provider of advanced digital video solutions, has announced that it will demonstrate its IPTV and digital video solutions at Broadcast Asia 2006, which will be held in Singapore from 20 – 23 June.

    The company will showcase Optibase’s flexible model design providing customers with future-proof video solutions to meet the evolving requirements of Telcos and service providers.

    Visitors to the Optibase booth will see the following demonstrations:

    A turnkey solution for IPTV with Optibase MGW-1100 integrated carrier grade TV streaming platform, Orca Interactive’s middleware service delivery platform and BitBand video servers streaming MPEG-2 video. Optibase can deliver turnkey all-in-one solutions, in addition to its encoders or transcoders, by providing systems integration and bringing together components from IPTV ecosystem partners.

    Live encoding of MPEG-4 AVC High Definition (HD) resolution technology, providing efficient HD bandwidth utilization without compromising video quality and allowing the use of existing MPEG-2 content which requires no additional decoding or processing equipment. MPEG-4 AVC HD is currently the only format that enables Telcos to provide high definition channels to DSL subscribers.

    MPEG-2 HD encoding and decoding through Optibase MovieMaker 200 HD, designed for professional quality ingest of HD for broadcasting, video on demand (VOD), ad insertion, program initiation and post-production studios, as well as for integrators working on high-resolution military simulation or surveillance projects.

    Also, on display at the Optibase booth, a professional digital video ingest system co-developed with Venaca Inc. leading provider of media asset management solutions. When part of a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, the integrated solution enables top quality video capture, Edit Decision List (EDL) creation, annotation archive retrieval, editing and asset management at the same time.

    “With MPEG-4, operators can reach more people with IPTV services, delivering additional streams to each home. Telcos want to deliver services like HDTV in order to stay competitive with satellite and cable, Optibase’s MPEG-4 technology and our proven interoperability with leading STBS, will enable Telcos to deploy advanced HDTV that will help them generate revenue and sustain subscribers,” said Optibase vice president marketing Yossi Aloni.

    Optibase will also discuss the recent announcement that it was selected by India’s state-owned major telecom, MTNL, to provide encoding solutions for the first IPTV deployment to go live in India.