Microsoft Mediaroom may well have landed another winning strategy, one which it is showing off now in Hungary, building on its first digital cable installation in China at the Guangzhou Digital Media Group back in 2009. Microsoft, with Cisco’s help, plans to convert the 403,000 homes which Deutsche Telekom subsidiary Magyar Telecom, has as cable TV subscribers into IPTV subs.
Guangzhou Digital was the first operation to use IPTV over cable with Mediaroom software, and also was the first operation to use Microsoft’s Anytime servers ‘ for nPVR and VoD combined, pushing them out to 2.5 million potential customers over a three year period. But our understanding is that this was only VoD server delivered content and not real time broadcasts, which rely on an IP multicast. While Mediaroom has not confirmed that this is a step on from the Chinese installation it began last year, it did say that this was the only full IPTV service over cable it had ever done.
Magyar is already a customer for Mediaroom since 2006, shortly after it convinced its parent, Deutsche Telekom, to use the system in Germany. The Mediaroom system was installed at a DSL based ISP T-Online Hundary, using Microsoft software and Alcatel telco equipment.
That installation has more than doubled its customer base during the past year from 37,500 subscribers to over 79,000, and Magyar either likes what Microsoft is doing, or is simply trying to unify its TV options.
The new system will use EuroDOCSIS 3.0 IP data over cable technology and says that it will deliver a full-featured IPTV service and that Magyar Telekom will be able to provide the IPTV service under the T-Home brand to more than 1.5 million Hungarian households ‘ over both its DSL and cable infrastructure. Right now the DSL infrastructure covers most of that, leaving about 403,000 existing cable customers.
But the idea that the customer won’t even know the difference between the two services, implies that this is the first multicast over cable IP (for Microsoft, others have delivered similar system before). Such a step would go a long way towards making Mediaroom software available to a much wider audience of players ‘ taking in many cable operations which are owned by incumbent telcos ‘ something common in Eastern and central Europe and in other isolated parts around the world.
And the fact that its partner here is Cisco is also important. We assume that this is just as much for enabling multicast routers at the end of the IP path, as for delivering Cable Modem Termination Systems, DOCSIS 3.0 modems and home gateways. This could finally lead to a perfect partnership which lets Cisco into the IPTV world. In fact it might dominate in a potential global transition from cable to IPTV over cable, partnering Microsoft all the way.
Magyar Telecom says that it has consolidated its head end, but by this we think it means that the ISP headend is man enough to serve any cable DOCSIS IPTV subscribers, and that the cable headend ‘ fundamentally a simpler technology ‘ would probably remain as it is until it is made redundant some years down the road. We have asked Mediaroom for clarification on just how the transition works and if we get more on that we’ll let you know.
Magyar is now pushing all of this under the brand of T-Home, and it is effectively a merger of the old Axelero ISP brand and the T-K’bel cable brands, into one. If Microsoft and Cisco can help pull off that trick all over DT subsidiaries, it might have quite a bit more business to do in Central Europe.
‘We are proud that thanks to our developments carried out in the past period, we are the first company in the world to offer IPTV service on EuroDocsis 3.0 cable network, therefore our customers can get familiar with IPTV features ‘ offering the experience of interactive TV ‘ even in areas, where it was not possible earlier. With this Magyar Telekom took yet another step towards strengthening the company’s leading position as a telecommunication and multimedia service provider’ ‘ said Christopher Mattheisen, chairman and CEO of Magyar Telekom.
Within the amphitheater of Hungary this could easily turn the tables in a three way fight between UPC, offering mostly a pure cable alternative, RDS/RCS and Magyar. UPC has 781,000 customer homes in Hungary with 412,000 of them still on analog cable, and unable to experience anything like the Mediaroom service. It has another 186,000 on digital cable and 184,000 homes using satellite delivery for the same content. Meanwhile dominant Romanian pay TV supplier RDS/RCS which also offers both cable and satellite TV services, is neck and neck in neighboring Hungary with Magyar, and has been squeezing both of these operators.
Magyar has managed to grow its customer base dramatically in both IPTV, up by 110%, and in satellite, which has grown over 300% this year, to 196,000. But it has been slowly eroded in the cable market and this move is planned to turn that around. If it works Microsoft will have the perfect case study and reference site for IPTV over cable.
T-Home started testing the new service in December, 2009 and will offer IPTV over cable first in Budapest and South-East Hungary, and later in other regions of Hungary. It is certainly using the same Anytime TV networked PVR which it used at cable homes in China, but here it calls it a VideoTheque, and it also offers 500 movies ahead of their TV premiere.