It’s been a long time getting permission even to exist, but the BBC inspired Project Canvas will soon see the light of day, but under what name? Local newspaper reports suggest that a combination of YouTube and the UK DVB-T service Freeview, has already been registered ‘ resulting in YouView. Canvas is a service based on a hybrid set top which copes with DVB-T and DVB-T2, as well as internet delivered TV, and will be launched by the BBC, BT, Channel 4, Channel Five, ITV, TalkTalk and Arqiva. Our view is that this is about as bad as TV Everywhere, in that it simply promulgates the existing broadcast businesses, and offers no route to market for new internet video ideas.
US researcher ABI Research puts the iPad in a new category of ultra-mobile devices (UMDs) and is doing what we advised last week, doing a forecast for that class of device, not just the iPad. It reckons that UMDs will be adopted by businesses, as much as consumers, and cites that fact that Cisco has put its WebEx Meeting Center on the iPad already. The only headline figure it gave out was that UMDs will be a $12.5 billion business by 2015.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau is trying to create an advertising infrastructure to support tablets and e-readers, and has formed a Tablet Task Force, from publishing and advertising industries. It has coined the term ‘Tabvertising,’ to describe it and the task force’s remit is to explore and define best practices, build an infrastructure for ongoing growth and provide guidance on the development of ad standards. But by the time it has done that, Google and Apple will have already carved out the market no doubt.
PacketVideo, the last remaining operating part of NextWave Wireless, continues to grow its business of video on portable devices, and is now attacking the in-car market in a deal with JDM System Consultants announced at the show, Telematics Detroit. It will bring its Twonky digital media connectivity systems to the automotive industry. Twonky is used to simplify the streaming of content to other devices, which we presume will now mean the car radio and any video screens on the seatbacks. The new system will include a voice activated media control to trigger search, play, start, stop, pause, up or down volume, or mute music or video.
US researcher ABI Research believes that automotive infotainment will decline as a business to just $24.8 billion by 2015. This is mostly due to price erosion, particularly for in-vehicle navigation systems, it says, not less use of devices. This has almost entirely been triggered by the Nokia decision to offer free turn by turn driving instructions on its phones. Google already offering them for free, and Apple offering the same in low cost Apps.
BigBand Networks has signed a reseller agreement with Technetix Group in Europe to attack the European broadband cable market. It has been trying for about 4 years to establish itself directly in Europe, but it looks like it will change direction now and go through OEMs. It is known for its BigBand’s vIP PASS, end-to-end video IP delivery platform and its Converged Video Exchange, an intelligent control plane which directs video to different end-user screens.
SES Astra, said this week it has a distribution deal with a leading Polish network operator NASK, which will offer its satellite-based broadband service called Astra2Connect to business customers in the Polish market. The service is available as of now and already has 60,000 users in other parts of Europe.
Monaco Telecom has just announced a new IPTV service created in partnership with French set top maker Netgem, using the NetgemTV middleware and set tops which can now also blend the service with internet access. Monaco Telecom says that it can easily add Over the Top video as required using the Netgem set tops.
Steve Jobs used his Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference keynote to boast that iAD, the new advertising service for applications on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPads, has already booked more than $60 million, even though there are several weeks to go before it is launched on July 1st. It’s not a lot, but it’s $60 million that Google will never see, and involves Disney, naturally as Jobs is the largest shareholder there, as well as Unilever, AT&T, Campbells Soup, Chanel, Citi, Nissan, Turner Broadcasting, Sears, Target and Best Buy. The trick, apparently is to offer advertising without interrupting what people are doing ‘ well whaddya’ know?
The Chinese Government can’t rely on the simple expedient of ‘market forces’ to bring triple play benefits to its consumers, so the Government there has sponsored its own plan to launch IP triple-play services on the Chinese mainland, according to reports on the Internet Evolution website. During 2010 to 2012 China will push trials on integrating broadcast TV, broadband and voice and promises to overcome any related regulator issues to make it possible. After that from 2013 to 2015, it will push to see these sectors integrated nationwide. With all those tiny cable operators getting eaten up by the major Telcos, it’s going to be a tough plan to stick to, but it will mean that China Telecom and China Unicom will be pushed to offer IPTV services. Trials will go on in all the major regions of China.
We suppose something ought to be mentioned about last week’s decision by AT&T to get rid of flat rate wireless data plans and instead cap them all in the future. Existing plans will continue to be honored even of people change phones, but any new deals will have data caps put on them from this week on.
Another piece of news that seems to have slipped through the net is that Iridium has raised $2.9 billion, which it needs to replenish its satellite network. Iridium is a two way network in the sky, using Low Earth Orbit satellites, which was inspired in the 90s by Motorola, went bankrupt after eating $billions, and then re-emerged from bankruptcy to create a viable business. Contracts have already been awarded to a consortium headed by French satellite specialist Thales. Because LEOs are so low to the earth, in order to prevent propagation delays in communications, Iridium needs 66 satellites to cover the Earth. But they are only 485 miles away from the surface, whereas traditional Geostationary satellites are 22,000 miles away.
Cisco says that server to client internet video traffic is about to overtake peer-to-peer video traffic, much of it piracy, by the end of 2010. This data comes from Cisco’s Visual Networking Index and will be the first time in ten years that P2P is not the largest internet traffic type. 3DTV and HD TV traffic will increase 13 times between 2010 and 2014 Cisco says.
It was always predictable that the Swiss regulator would not let Swisscom, the leading telco there, still half owned by the government, to get sidelined by the creation of a stronger networking force in Switzerland. Orange, has therefore pulled out of its merger with TDC and its cellular operation Sunrise. Weirdly Swisscom welcomed the competition. Orange and TDC said that they could see no way past the block placed on the deal by the regulator. We would have expected a legal challenge, but then again Switzerland is not part of the EU, so European rules do not apply, so there’s no challenge possible from that direction.
After years of being at each other’s throats the two largest UK pay TV companies, Sky (satellite) and Virgin Media (cable) are suddenly getting on, partly due to the imposition of wholesale channel pricing on Sky by the local regulator. As a result Sky is now happy to buy the majority of the Virgin content business Virgin Media Television for £160 million ($232 million) with an up front payment of £105 million, and at the same time signing new carriage agreements for the Sky basic channels and Sky sports in HD, on Virgin Media.
This week Qualcomm has invested in Anteryon, a leader in wafer-based, miniature optical modules for mobile phone cameras and laser projection which used to belong to Philips. The deal is led by Qualcomm Ventures Europe with BNP Paribas Private Equity and Biggell Finance participating as existing shareholders. The funds will be used to improve the WaferOptics optical module production technology and expand an Asian production facility. Terms of the investment have not been disclosed.
UK set top maker Pace has joined the WiFi Alliance and says that it plans to put WiFi into selected set tops it is designing right now. It reckons, as we do, that WiFi will be one of the main ways of sending TV signals round a home for some time to come, despite its shortfalls as a video technology. Pace says that WiFi will go into its high end devices, and will allow users to share audio and video content. We suspect a pay TV operator has put out an RFP including WiFi and this is how Pace has responded.
US analyst group Infonetics Research says that global pay TV revenues will reach $250 billion by 2014 across cable, IPTV and satellite operators.
It sees IPTV dramatically upping its ARPU to somewhere closer to cable and satellite, as telcos use it to stem the loss of revenue from decreasing fixed access lines and cites examples as AT&T, Verizon, Belgacom, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Iliad, and China Telecom who are all adding video subscribers at a rapid rate due to exclusive content, better picture quality (HD) and cheap introductory offers undercutting cable and satellite.
According to Broadband TV News Antenna Hungaria is thinking about taking some of the spectrum it has set aside for providing a broadcast DVB-H mobile TV service in Hungary and using it on its second DVB-T multiplex, offering free to air digital terrestrial TV. The regulator has to be approached to clear the move, but it looks at least like Antenna Hungaria will at least ask the question.
Western Canadian telco Telus has dusted down its broadband and IPTV offerings, given them a shiny new name of Optik and taken their speed up to 25 Mbps. The Telus IPTV service is built around Microsoft’s Mediaroom middleware and offers multiroom DVR, VoD, picture in Picture browsing, fast channel change and Call Display on your TV and will shortly introduce Remote Recording.
UK IPTV set top maker Amino Technologies said that its order intake remains strong, as it has been since the second half of last year, and that first half revenues will be a record. Margins could be better, but this is because of foreign exchange movements and higher component prices, plus more sales to bigger companies who want better prices. It will make a small loss, but still has bundles of cash (£13.0 million) and has made its first shipments of its OTT/hybrid device built around the Intel CE4100 to its mystery tier 1 customer, which we believe to be Telecom Italia. It also said that it has secured a new contract to provide set-top boxes (STB) to Romtelecom, one of the most important telecom operators in Romania.