Orders for LTE equipment are expected to approach $250 million during 2010 and reach $5 billion by 2014, and the most important driver of this growth will be HD video over wireless. This is the conclusion of a new report from Dell ‘Oro Group, following a string of similar predictions from around the industry ‘ most famously Cisco’s belief that, by 2014, mobile data traffic will reach 3.6 exabytes per month globally, with video representing 66% of the total, up 66 times on its 2009 figure.
In addition, Cisco said last year that video on-demand, IPTV and internet TV would account for nearly 90% of all consumer IP traffic in 2012. Two of the most important drivers of this are over-the-top offerings like YouTube, and the trend to deliver a unified content experience to the ‘three screens’ (cellphone, TV and PC) and beyond those, to the other emerging screens from tablets to in-car systems and even fridges. No wonder, then, that the delivery of video to multiple screens over wireless or converged networks is a key theme of the CTIA Wireless event in Las Vegas this week. The three main pillars of the mobile industry ‘ wireless vendors, web players and carriers ‘ were all talking up unified content delivery, and each group was trying to enhance its own role in that delivery, and therefore its place in the value hierarchy.
On the vendor side, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens were most vocal, showing off new products in Las Vegas and across the pond in London, where IPTV World Forum was taking place. Both firms are addressing the squeeze on margins and market share in the RAN by redoubling their efforts in growth areas like the mobile packet core. This platform will be key if carriers want to be the guardians of the fixed and mobile video experience, and as well as Cisco’s much reported efforts, Juniper recently extended its content data network as part of its Project Falcon, the next generation for its core strategy. This week it was the turn of the wireless RAN specialists, both focusing on the multiple screen opportunity, and how to help their cellco customers take advantage (an area in which Ericsson has also been active since buying Tandberg TV three years ago).
This week, ALU announced its Multiscreen Video Solution, while NSN was focusing more specifically on television that could be viewed on any device. The former gives services providers a range of tools and services that allow video content to be scaled and optimized for different screens and connections, but in a way that appears seamless to end users. This should add value to the end user experience, compared to what open web players deliver, says the firm, and for the carriers, it reduces complexity, and the time and cost of managing multimedia.
Most industry players see video as the major driver of user uptake, especially on mobile networks. Currently, this is a double-edged sword for cellcos, whose 3G systems often creak under the strain ‘ but a content delivery network (CDN) they control, and that is tuned to the wireless network, can help with efficiency. And as they invest in WiMAX or LTE, they believe video services will be the major element in justifying the build-out, luring users with new services.
ALU has unveiled two products to support these strategies. The Multiscreen Video Solution integrates content delivery over different networks, allowing video to be pushed to phones, PCs and any other devices with wireless connectivity. And the Velocix Digital Media Delivery Platform, the product of its acquisition of CDN player Velocix last year, consists of a series of appliances that carriers can deploy to support multimedia in a differentiated way, tailoring services to individual subscriber groups, rather than relying on more generic shared CDNs.
The vendor has also extended its range of professional services in this area, and announced the Multiscreen Foundation, a cooperative geared to creating an open foundation for service provider offerings.
Meanwhile, NSN has unveiled a software platform promising television on demand, on any screen. It is not just a delivery framework but a full applications platform, allowing operators to create new apps, and potentially to open up to third party developers and content owners.
Carriers can provide live, recorded or on-demand TV to cellphones, PCs, satellite or digital terrestrial TV screens, or other web-enabled devices. Among the services it can enable are remote personal video recording, catch-up TV, operator-to-subscriber messaging, faster channel change, and enhanced IPTV picture stability. Some can be carrier or subscriber controlled, depending on business model.
‘This new software platform lets subscribers enjoy video content and manage it in a consistent way, whether inside or outside the home,’ said Brook Longdon, head of media and entertainment solutions at NSN. ‘By offering quality video on a range of different devices, across different networks, and by providing an open environment for app development, we free operators to partner with developers without being bound to any one vendor’s roadmaps and to differentiate their service.’
The platform is based on two key standards – DVB-IPTV and the Open IPTV Forum’s Baseline Managed Profile. The development aspects tie into NSN’s Interactive Applications toolkit, which aims to support rapid apps creation and user interface customization.
All the big European RAN suppliers are increasingly looking for growth from being the ‘carriers’ friend’, providing them with tools ‘ like these for video ‘ to enhance their place in the value chain and leverage the assets of their networks, to fend off Google and the bitpipe role. But that strategy is under pressure from two sides. One is the obvious one of increasingly compelling TV and video offerings from the over-the-top web players, epitomized in the new Google TV initiative. The other comes from the cellcos themselves, which are tending to put aside their differences and band together to create ‘telco 2.0’ platforms of their own, without significant help from their vendors.
This was clear when 24 large cellcos formed the Wholesale Application Community (WAC) last month, to create a set of APIs and frameworks for developers, that would work across all their networks. The resulting white label developer platform and store can then be branded and customized by each carrier ‘ squeezing the role of similar wholesale apps frameworks being offered by ALU, Ericsson, Qualcomm and others. The same process is seen in video and multimedia content, with reports that the carriers will go a step further than WAC and collaborate on app and content stores, with Deutsche Telekom the prime mover this time.
The German incumbent is planning a digital storefront to rival Apple iTunes and App Store, reports the Financial Times’ local edition. This will not just be a revamped shopfront for its own customers, but will be the basis of a wholesale store framework that could be branded by a number of rival carriers too. This would reduce time to market and could lead to the partners using their combined weight to negotiate deals with content majors, as well as to create an attractive developer base.
Deutsche Telekom and its unnamed partners will build the new store around its existing platforms, Mediaload, Videoload and Gamesload. The main focus will be on smartphones and other portable media devices, and so the store will include mobile apps as well as music, video and games. However, it is likely that the eventual aim will be to span all the screens ‘ mobile devices, PCs, TVs and emerging options like in-car systems. Creating a common media store and user experience, with unified security and personalization settings plus cloud storage, is a goal of many advanced operators, with Orange probably the frontrunner.
Such an approach aims to offer a superior content experience to the open web and over-the-top providers; to tie consumers into a single carrier for TV, broadband and mobile services; and to be neutral of different operating systems and software platforms, putting the carrier firmly at the helm. It could also be bad news for the vendors – potentially sidelined by a concerted effort by major cellcos to run the show themselves.