ITV

Tag: Telecom Italia

  • Infosys wins three awards at Nice comm event

    MUMBAI: Infosys, a global leader in consulting, technology, outsourcing and next-generation services, has participation in six of the 32 Catalysts at TM Forum Live – winning three of the seven Catalyst Awards at the annual flagship communications industry event, held in Nice, France. The Awards recognized Infosys’ open innovation to co-create commercially viable prototypes of new digital services and business models.

    The three winning Catalysts: A platform for IoT and Anything as a Service: This Catalyst focused on how operators can attract ecosystem partners to co-create new digital services beyond connectivity through the platform business model. Infosys worked with Vodafone and was recognized for its outstanding performance. The focus was on delivering agility, experience and efficiency to communication service providers and exposing TM Forum Open APIs to third party developers to create new revenue streams enabled by network slicing, edge computing and a service marketplace.

    “This Catalyst has brought several leading industry players together to show how platform business models together with orchestration and closed-loop assurance can deliver innovative new services and new revenue streams to our industry,” said Dr. Lester Thomas, Chief Systems Architect, Vodafone Group. “Infosys played an invaluable role in the overall architecture, and in particular, defining the Open APIs and contributing enhancements to the Open API programme.”

    Joint Agile Delivery – Phase II: In this Catalyst, Infosys was recognized for ‘Outstanding Use’ of TM Forum Assets and worked with AT&T, Orange, Telecom Italia. This Catalyst has been recognized for continuing efforts towards contributing APIs and processes to TM Forum and has a vision for a ‘standardized and platform-based’ approach to developing and delivering world-class software that capitalizes on cross-organizational synergies to dramatically improve time to market, quality and cost.

    “Seamless Joint Agile Delivery across complex partner ecosystem is going to be key for rapid service innovation, delivery and operations. Infosys, along with other major industry partners, collaborated on this catalyst to provide a standardized and platform based approach for service validation and service assurance for Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and associated Network Services from different suppliers,” said Michel Valette, Tests and Diagnostics Domain Manager, Orange & Stream Leader, Operations Centre of the Future, TM Forum. “Infosys leveraged their rich capabilities on machine learning and artificial intelligence to provide closed loop adaptive service assurance for dynamic network services coming from different partners.”

    Logical Factory: Virtualizing Manufacturing for Agility: This Catalyst, developed with BT, Telecom Italia and TWI, built on a prior award-winning Catalyst – the Smart Industrial Manufacturing: Robots as a Service, which demonstrated the use of TMF’s Open-APIs in the Industrial Internet-of-Things domain to order and configure Robots-as-a-Service. In this enhanced version, the scope was expanded to the entire manufacturing and maintenance process lifecycle. TM Forum recognized this Catalyst project in the category for ‘Outstanding Ecosystem Design’ using CurateFx – TM Forum’s digital ecosystem design and management SaaS solution.

    “Infosys’ commendable effort and focus in developing the concept played a key part in the team winning the ‘Outstanding Ecosystem Design Using CurateFx’,” said Darren Williams, Welding Systems Lead, TWI.

    Nik Willets, Chief Executive Officer, TM Forum said, “Infosys has made significant investments to enhance its knowledge base in new and emerging technologies. Winning three awards for Catalyst projects proves that Infosys is a knowledge partner capable of defining next-generation products and services for communication service providers. The company is also an early adopter of TM Forum’s Open API initiative.”

    Rajesh Krishnamurthy, President and Head of Energy, Utilities, Telecommunications and Services, Infosys said, “Our technology focus and collaboration with like-minded partners is accelerating innovation and delivering results.

  • Telecom Italia & Rupert Murdoch’s Sky partner for Internet TV service

    Telecom Italia & Rupert Murdoch’s Sky partner for Internet TV service

    MUMBAI: Fibre-optic cable TV has landed in Italy as part of a strategic partnership between Telecom Italia and Rupert Murdoch’s Sky. The companies will be sharing their assets and their respective expertise to bring forth a key business project that will also boost ultra-broadband demand in Italy.

     

    With this partnership, the two companies take a crucial step forward towards “convergence” between media and TLC, as the deal makes way for the first “quadruple play” offer in Italy, integrating landline and mobile services, broadband and ultra-broadband connectivity and premium television content available “anytime and anywhere” on all Internet-connected devices.

     

    The excellence of content and the uniqueness of Sky’s viewing experience turn into drivers for spreading TIM’s ultra-broadband and, at the same time, the access to Telecom Italia’s latest generation networks allows Sky to benefit from a new distribution platform for its content and services offer.

     

    The initiative strengthens TIM’s strategy in distributing innovative services and confirms its role as technology enabler thanks to very high-speed networks, thus bringing more and more households closer to the very quality of content and the new modes to enjoy the Sky-branded viewing experience.

     

    Similarly, the agreement with Telecom Italia does carry a strategic meaning for Sky too, as it makes all its wide-ranging offer of programs and exclusive services available on broadband and on ultra-broadband networks as well thus extending pay TV scope to reach out, for example, those prospects who reside in the city centers of the many Italian art cities and cannot install the satellite dish and therefore access Italy’s best TV offer.

     

    The TIM Sky joint offer will be available for TIM’s private customers with a fibre-optic connection from 30 to 100 Mbit/s and 20 Mbit/s ADSL.

     

    With TIM’s broadband and ultra-broadband networks, Sky’s television offer and user experience will equal those available via satellite. An offering featuring more than 150 channels, with all the quality of HD (about 60 HD channels and one 3D channel) and with all the innovative features that make viewing experience unique, from Sky On Demand, the video-library with more than 2500 titles to be watched at any time, to Restart, the service enabling subs to restart a movie already on air from the very beginning. All the other My Sky HD features allowing customers to record their favorite programs, pause a live show or watch again whatever scene with the replay, will be active within the summer.

     

    For the first year, the TIM Sky offer will be proposed, as a promotion, starting from €14 per month for users already with fibre or ADSL connectivity and from €39 per month for a quadruple play package (internet landline and mobile, voice and TV content).

     

    Telecom Italia CEO Marco Patuano said, “Today, in Italy, with Sky, we are starting a new collaboration model between Telco and Media Companies that allows us to go to the market with a fully convergent offer. We are convinced that this strategic deal is an important driver for the development of the new ultra-broadband networks and of the innovative technologies that are at the core of our business plan featuring more than 5 billion euros investments for the three years period 2015-2017. We are particularly pleased with this partnership as it allows our customers to access exclusive and high quality content thanks to Telecom Italia’s technological expertise and Sky’s editorial richness.”

     

    “This partnership is an example of how two leading companies, that have always been investing in innovation, can join together to create something that until recently was not even possible in Italy, therefore boosting demand, so far only potential, for quality pay TV also through ultra-broadband. From now on Telecom Italia’s fibre will bring all the richness of content and the excellence of Sky’s viewing experience, with HD, on demand, Restart, My Sky features, into the houses of millions of Italian families who, for various reasons, could not install a dish. Sky is currently present on all the main distribution platforms and this agreement does carry a strong strategic value for us as it broadens Sky’s commercial prospects base. To understand its importance just think that in the UK almost 20% of households enjoy a pay TV offer through cable or broadband,” added Sky Italia CEO Andrea Zappia.

  • IPTV survey reveals limited initial revenue expectations

    IPTV survey reveals limited initial revenue expectations

    MUMBAI: Accenture and the Economist Intelligence Unit conducted a global survey of 302 technology and media firm executives. All of them are involved in or close to the IPTV business—network operators, equipment vendors, consumer electronics firms, broadcasters/studios and content providers.

    Key Findings:

    There is long-term optimism in IPTV: 34 per cent of the executives we surveyed believe IPTV will generate “significant revenue” by 2009 and another 57 per cent are at least “somewhat confident” that this will be the case.

    But, few companies expect a substantial IPTV impact on their bottom line. Rather, most see the larger impact being on top-line growth. Network operators also hope IPTV will drive the take-up of broadband access connections and help reduce customer churn.

    Content is critical to network operators’ business model. They are currently acquiring it however they can, and the largest proportion of respondents say distribution without rights of ownership will be the primary means of sourcing IPTV content over the next year, according to an official release.

    Video-on-demand is expected to be the chief money-maker among different IPTV services, both today and over the longer term. There is little consensus on other likely revenue sources. Respondents did not see advertising as a potential money-earner.

    The chief hurdles to IPTV consumer adoption: a dearth of compelling content and lingering quality-of-service problems. Not a single respondent from this group is very confident that IPTV will spur significant revenue growth within a year of launch and no more than half are fairly or very confident of generating substantial revenue by 2009.

    Despite respondents’ pessimism that IPTV will spur growth in the near-term, major players are in various stages of testing IPTV. These include Verizon, AT&T, Telecom Italia, France Telecom and China Netcom, the release adds.

  • Deutsche Telecom to use Microsoft’s IPTV technology in Germany

    Deutsche Telecom to use Microsoft’s IPTV technology in Germany

    MUMBAI: Europe’s biggest telecommunications group Deutsche Telekom will use Microsoft software to power new internet-based television services it plans to offer in Germany before the end of 2006.

    The tie up will see the service launched across Deutsche Telekom’s VDSL network using a Microsoft IPTV platform. The companies have promised a range of entertainment products, including regular programming in standard and high-definition formats, as well as interactive TV, digital video recording and video on demand. The latter feature will allow viewers to access selected feature films, TV series or documentaries at the touch of a button.

    The deal cements Microsoft’s position as the leading supplier to providers of internet protocol TV, with 13 telecoms groups now installing or testing its IPTV software. It also represents a milestone for Deutsche Telekom in its bid to be one of the first telecoms groups to offer high-definition TV, voice and data services on new, ultra-fast internet lines.

    Deutsche Telecom previously had been conducting a trial of the Microsoft IPTV software. The service is planned for launch in mid 2006 in 10 major German cities including Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich. Other Microsoft IPTV customers include AT&T, Telecom Italia and Swisscom.