Boosting cable broadband

may/june 2014
Boosting cable
broadband
The future of
satellite TV
RDK update
Cable Congress
review
Cable Labs
Q&A
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Contents
22
Cable special part II: Cable Labs Q&A
In this issue we interview Cable Labs CTO Ralph
Brown, who shares his thoughts and inside work on
DOCSIS 3.1, CCAP, WiFi and seamless mobility and
other hot topics influencing cable
24
10
News analysis
What Comcast-Netflix means for net neutrality; and
TiVo’s ambitions in Europe
12
Cable special part III: Cable Congress review
The last part of our cable special coverage looks back
at Cable Congress 2014, which this year strongly
focused on what wireless and mobility can do for cable
25
Viewpoint
There is more to social TV than just Twitter
Analyst corner
With the nail firmly in the coffin for 3DTV, what
lessons should it teach the industry, asks Guy Bisson
28
14
CSI is given a tour of a secure data centre in the heart
of London, as these facilities become increasingly
important for the delivery of modern TV services
The future of DTH
Reports of satellite TV’s demise are greatly
exaggerated
18
Cable special part I: RDK update
How has the reference design kit changed since it was
introduced and what is the next step in its evolution?
36
Data centres
DTG column
The latest on the standardisation of the various
elements of ultra HD, which entails a lot more than
simply higher resolution
Editor’s report:
Cable has long prided itself on having the best broadband pipes, part of a toolkit flexible
enough to hold its own even in the face of telco FTTH networks. Faster DOCSIS 3.1
speeds are emerging as one response to an increasingly competitive landscape but even
more interesting are developments taking place by the industry in the area of wireless and
mobility, which have been often overlooked but now seen as a key extension of cable’s
broadband experience going forward. Cable Labs gives us an insight into some of the work taking place
on this front and fixed-mobile convergence was also one of the big topics at Cable Congress. The other
part of our cable special looks at the Reference Design Kit, which has made good progress over the last
two years. RDK licensees stand at over 140 and the shared-source software bundle has been embraced
by operators in North America and Europe. But challenges remain, analysed on p18. Goran Nastic, editor
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News
Discovery tests OTT waters
Discovery Communications is
experimenting with over-the-top
distribution in the Nordics in order
to prepare for an uncertain future
for television.
The content firm launched a
direct-to-consumer (D2C) OTT
platform over the last month or so,
and has already signed up 10,000
subscribers, according to CEO David
Zaslav, speaking at FT’s Digital
Media conference.
“We have between 25% and 40%
share in those markets and are
experimenting to see how an OTT
platform could work in one of our
small markets,” said Zaslav, noting
the company is also offering a
product called D-Play through which
consumers can get much of
Discovery’s content in those markets.
The idea behind these
Photo by: Adam Fagen
developments is for Discovery to be
flexible and open to all options in a
media landscape shifting towards
multi-screen viewing and broadband
delivery of content. “The market is
changing to various degrees around
the world and we don’t know where
it’s all going to end up. We have to
see how the world does change. The
good news for us is that as we own
all our content we can participate on
every platform,” said Zaslav.
news in brief
“For us as a content owner, the
idea of more players and more
windows for them to buy our
content is a great thing. The fact
there is TV Everywhere and OTT
starting to develop in a number of
markets, over the next couple of
years there has never been a better
time to be in business for us
content owners,” he added.
The bigger question for Zaslav is
whether the emergence of these
platforms and ways of consuming
content is over the next five to
seven years going to change
viewing behaviour and to what
extent that might happen. “Will the
economics of those other platforms
be as good the current economics
of dual revenue stream?” he asked.
“It’s something we’ll all have to
figure out.”
BT Sport makes Chromecast play
BT is making its sports channels
available via Google’s
Chromecast streaming stick. The
telco is the second UK
broadcaster to place its content
on Google’s dongle, following in
the footsteps of tje BBC’s iPlayer
app, although no date has yet
been placed on the launch. The
channels will only be available to
BT’s broadband customers, and is
designed to reduce its
dependence on the YouView
platform, which the telco recently
committed to for the next five
years. Chromecast, like its Roku
counterpart, went on sale in the
UK in March but retailing at a
cheaper £30, and the addition of
BT Sport content should help
boost sales.
News
news in brief
Netflix France to operate
from Luxembourg
Netflix has reportedly decided to
supply the French market from
headquarters in Luxembourg in
order to bypass French
regulations. A report in Les
Echos, citing unnamed officials
at the French culture ministry,
said Netflix is unwilling to
comply with French regulations
on video broadcasting that
include mandatory investment in
French productions and quotas of
French series and movies being
streamed to customers. The
US-based company already
operates in some European
countries from Luxembourg. It is
gearing up for a French launch
before the end of the year and
has contacted local telcos about
carrying the service.
Legacy TV to fall at expense
of OTT
Broadcast legacy television will
decline from 90% of all video
viewed in 2013 to two-thirds in
2020, with broadband TV making
up the difference, says TDG. By
the end of the decade, legacy TV
viewing will fall by more than
25% from current viewing levels,
driven by evolution of the ‘Big 4’
of Amazon, Apple, Google, and
Microsoft and the impact they
will have on consumer video
viewing, according to TDG.
Arris snaps up SeaWell
Arris is expanding its IP video
portfolio with the acquisition of
SeaWell Networks. The Ontariobased company brings technology
including adaptive bit-rate, multiscreen video and ad insertion
solutions. SeaWell will join the
network and cloud business, one
of three units that was created
after Arris bought Motorola
Home last year.
06
May-June 2014
Telecom Italia and Sky in broadband TV
pact
Sky and Telecom Italia are teaming
to deliver an internet-television
service. The deal will allow the
telco to offer Sky content via its
broadband TV service. As of next
year, Telecom Italia clients with a
My Sky HD decoder will have
access to all of Sky’s TV
programmes over the Web.
“The Sky offer becomes the key
element of Telecom Italia’s
ultrabroadband strategy, and access
to the new generation network
allows Sky to benefit from an
additional distribution platform for
its programmes,” TI said.
“From 2015 consumer customers
of Telecom Italia will in fact be able
to access a Sky offer that is
equivalent, in terms of contents,
services and pricing, to the satellite
offer,” the telco said.
The offer will primarily be aimed
at households with fibre-based
internet connections, and will drive
uptake for high-speed broadband
connections.
Sky will have access to a new
market, namely people living in
historic towns who are unable to
install a satellite dish. Telecom
Italia’s mobile-phone customers can
also watch Sky TG24 all-news
channel on their smartphones and
tablets.
Sky has about 4.8 million paying
households in Italy and an audience
of more than 15 million viewers.
Vodafone teamed with Mediaset in
a similar deal to offer movies and
TV-shows on its Web-based
on-demand service called Infinity.
Time Warner to develop RDK box
Time Warner Cable is to launch its
first IP set-top box integrating the
Reference Design Kit (RDK)
platform and featuring cloud-based
navigation.
Time Warner is working with
Humax to create the RDK-based
STB, due for launch by the end of
the year. The cloud navigator
consists of its new HTML 5 cloudbased navigation guide that provides
enhanced search capabilities and
additional programme information.
“We’re very excited as this is the
first implementation of the RDK for
Time Warner Cable and steers us
towards the future of an all IP
service,” said Matthew Zelesko, Time
Warner Cable’s senior VP, Converged
Technology Group.
Time Warner Cable expects to
deploy the new IP boxes in select
markets by the end of 2014. Comcast
is the only other operator to have
deployed RDK-based boxes, built on
its X1/X2 platforms, and
manufactured by Pace and Arris.
Irdeto opens multi-screen centre
Irdeto has opened its new global
Network Operations Center (NOC)
to support customers deploying its
hosted/cloud-based solutions and
managed services.
The facility was established in
response to growing use of OTT
and multiscreen services and
consumer expectation for a flawless
user experience, something not yet
guaranteed in these environments.
Irdeto said the NOC offers 24/7
monitoring and rapid response to
customers but it will also use the
facility to track and monitor other
areas that impact customers
businesses such as the rising trend
of global internet piracy and the
need for revenue assurance.
It will offer an established and
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dedicated customer care team of over
40 staff who will proactively monitor
Business Critical Applications,
Services and Hardware in real time,
allowing rapid response to service
disruptions and customer cases.
The company claims the new
initiative, which already counts
around 25 existing customers, will
help reduce time to market of multiscreen implementations by more
than half.
Cisco Videoscape:
expands to the Cloud
Cisco Videoscape is an open and
modular platform that enables service
providers and media companies to deliver and
monetize experiences faster using the latest
cloud technologies.
See us at:
Converging Home Summit, London
ANGACOM – stand J13
News
Pay TV to soar in Eastern Europe
news in brief
IPTV close to 100m subs
IPTV is nearing the 100 million
subscriber threshold, reaching 96
million at end-2013. The market
grew 21% last year with 17
million new subscribers. At the
end of 2013, 14.1% of fixed
broadband subscribers also
subscribed to an IPTV service.
Asia led the way with 45m subs,
followed by Europe with 34m and
North America with 13m.
UPC tests HomeSpots
UPC Poland has started a free
Wi-Fi service based on shared
access to customers home
routers, also known as
HomeSpots. The UPC Wi-Free
service is currently in trials with
around 6,000 customers in the
Spopt area, and the cablenet aims
to launch the service to all
customers in a couple of months.
Sky buy-to-keep films
Sky has introduced a ‘Buy &
Keep’ movie service, giving
customers the ability to buy
movies as well as rent them for
the first time. Launching with
hundreds of titles, Sky customers
will have access to a full digital
movie store directly on their TV
via their connected Sky+HD box
at the same time as their DVD
release, with many titles available
for digital early release.
Customers also get a postal DVD.
Amazon in HBO first
Amazon has signed a licensing
deal with HBO to make Prime
Instant Video the exclusive
online-only subscription home for
select HBO shows. This is the
first time that HBO programming
has been licensed to an onlineonly subscription streaming
service, although the content will
still be available on all of HBO’s
current platforms.
08
May-June 2014
The number of digital TV homes
will triple in the region between
2010 and 2020 by which time TV
will be almost fully digital.
The number of digital pay TV
subscribers will increase from 26.1
million in 2010 to 45.0 million in
2013 when it will account for a
third of all homes and onto 73.6
million (58.2% of homes) by 2020,
according to Digital TV Research.
From the 52.3 million digital TV
homes to be added, DTT will
supply 24.9 million, digital cable
15.3 million, IPTV 6.6 million and
pay satellite TV 5.8 million. Russia,
Ukraine and Poland will account
for most of the growth.
Eastern Europe TV households by platform (million)
2010
2013
2014
2020
Analog Terr
45.30
23.16
18.36
0.00
Pay DTT
0.35
0.70
0.87
1.62
FTA DTT
4.60
16.13
19.68
40.15
Analog cable TV
35.19
27.54
24.08
1.88
Digital cable TV
4.95
10.91
13.33
26.20
Pay IPTV
2.41
7.61
9.31
14.24
FTA DTH
10.33
11.22
11.16
10.86
Pay DTH
18.40
25.84
26.80
31.59
Dig pay TV
26.10
45.05
50.31
73.65
Source: Digital TV Research
Digital TV penetration crossed the
halfway mark of TV households in
2012, and will reach 98.5% by 2020.
Pay TV revenues will be 48%
higher in 2020 at $7.305 billion.
It is probably worth noting that for
the purposes of this report, the
analysts have assumed that the
situation in Ukraine will be resolved
fairly quickly.
US online ads surpass TV in 2013
Online ad revenues have for the first
time come in higher than broadcast
TV advertising, new data show.
According to the Interactive
Advertising Bureau (IAB), online
ads hit a record a record $42.8
billion in 2013 billion, narrowly
edging out broadcast TV’s figure of
$40.1 billion. Cable television
stood at $34.4 billion with
newspapers fourth at $18 billion
last year.
The online revenues, which
include mobile ads, rose 17% on
the previous year’s total of $36.6
billion. Mobile hit $7.1bn for the
year, and accounted for 17% of 2013
revenues. Digital video saw $2.8
billion for the year, up 19% from the
previous year.
Retail advertisers continue to
represent the largest category of
internet ad spending, responsible for
21% in 2013, followed by financial
services and closely trailed by
automotive.
“The news that interactive has
outperformed broadcast television
should come as no surprise,” said
Randall Rothenberg, president and
CEO of the IAB. “It speaks to the
power that digital screens have in
reaching and engaging audiences. In
that same vein, the staggering growth
of mobile is clearly a direct response
to how smaller digital screens play an
integral role in consumers’ lives
throughout the day, as well as their
critical importance to cross-screen
experiences.”
“Our survey confirms that we are
fully in transition to the post-desktop
era,” said David Silverman, partner
at Price Waterhouse Coopers US,
which prepared the report for IAB.
Vodafone enhances fibre TV
As part of its wider global strategy,
Vodafone is deploying new TV
services over its fibre-to-the-home
network in the Netherlands.
The Vodafone Thuis branded
service being rolled out is deployed
over the company’s FTTH network
to enable advanced IPTV services,
including pausing live TV and an
extensive video-on-demand library
from public broadcasters, HBO,
Videoland and others.
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Vodafone, the world’s largest
mobile operator, is increasingly
looking to fixed line services as a
way of boosting revenues and
winning customers through quad-play
bundles. It is undergoing a spending
spree acquiring able and other fixed
line assets in several European
markets to achieve this.
“This is a significant step in
Vodafone’s strategy, in the
Netherlands and globally, to build on
our market leadership in mobile
communications to create a multiservice delivery platform that
addresses all needs of the consumer,”
said Gerard Overmars, head of
consumer fixed at Vodafone
Netherlands.
The telco is partnering with
Entone, whose solution includes
802.11ac for wireless distribution
and MoCA for coax cabling around
home, as well as Boxless.
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News analysis
news in brief
Ziggo tests new VoIP app
Ziggo has started testing a form
of fixed-mobile convergence that
involves using a mobile or
wireless internet connection for
calling with a customer’s landline
on the go. Using the new Bapp
app, available for trial, Ziggo said
it lets users have their fixed
telephone number wherever they
go, even abroad, via WiFi or
3G/4G connections. Bapp is an
iOS and Android call app
installed on a smartphone or
tablet. Phone calls are made with
the same rates as through a fixed
line and can also be used on all
fixed and mobile numbers,
something not possible with most
VoIP apps.
Zeebox becomes Beamly
Social TV app Zeebox has
rebranded as Beamly as it seeks a
more consumer friendly image.
The company is relaunching its
website and iOS and Android
apps with the new branding, as
well as features that aim to get
people logging in throughout the
day to chat about their favourite
shows. The move is part of an
effort to show it’s a mainstream
product rather than just a synchronised Twitter TV guide for
geek to being a larger part of a
wider viewing experience. The
new app encourages people to
“follow” individual TV shows,
celebrities and other Beamly
users, before serving them up a
feed of activity and show recommendations. Shows will have their
own “TV rooms” within the app
where fans can chat and interact.
Conax part of Kudelski
The Kudelski Group has
completed its acquisition of
Conax, the Oslo-based global
provider of content protection for
digital TV services.
10
May-June 2014
Netflix CEO fuels the flames and comes
under fire
Net neutrality and internet peering have come under a new spotlight
once again thanks to Netflix’s recent actions. By Goran Nastic
Reed Hastings has been accused of
wanting a “free lunch” by AT&T
after the Netflix CEO called for
ISPs not to charge for better
internet service quality as the
net neutrality debate enters a
new chapter.
In a widely publicised blog
comment last week, Hasting said
that broadband companies should
be required to connect their
networks to major content
providers such as Netflix for free,
arguing that ISPs should not be
able to charge an “arbitrary tax” for
interconnections to OTT services.
“Netflix believes strong net
neutrality is critical, but in the near
term we will in cases pay the toll to
the powerful ISPs to protect our
consumer experience. Without
strong net neutrality, big ISPs can
demand potentially escalating fees
for the interconnection required
to deliver high quality service,”
he wrote.
Hasting’s comment came less
than a month after his company
agreed to pay Comcast to ensure
that its OTT service was delivered
without interruption. But it is the
principle of paid peering that
concerns Netflix in the long term,
and Hastings now called for
Source: Netflix on Apple TV
www.csimagazine.com
stronger network neutrality rules and
positioned himself and the company
as a champion for net neutrality.
Since then, AT&T senior executive
vice president of external and
legislative affairs, Jim Cicconi,
replied by labelling Hastings as
“arrogant,” “self-righteous” and
“expecting a free lunch.” He said that
internet users who do not subscribe
to Netflix shouldn’t have to cross
subsidise the bandwidth expansion
required to ensure the delivery of the
OTT service for those who do.
Irrespective of whether some see
the recent deal between Comcast and
Netflix (and now rumours of a
similar agreement between the
cablenet and Apple) as a net
neutrality issue or not, the
interconnection debate has once
again captured the public
imagination as high profile
companies enter a new wave of
negotiations. CSI understands that
Netflix has reached similar
agreements with Scandinavian and
other European broadband operators.
It was interesting to hear both
Cable Europe and Cable Labs
dismiss the relevance of these deals
and what they might mean for the
future of OTT video. Cable Europe
president Manuel Kohnstamm (who
is also SVP and chief policy
officer of Liberty Global) noted
that despite most peering
agreements being noncontractual in nature only a few
end up under dispute and even
fewer result in service
termination. Cable Labs CTO
Ralph Brown saw it as a
standard peering relationship,
albeit one that will result in a
better customer experience for
both parties.
Apple is effectively looking to buy
into much the same experience,
wanting to use Comcast’s access
network in order to guarantee service
quality for its Apple TV users. While
the underlying idea of guaranteed
QoS in an OTT environment is a
good thing for the end-user the fear
is that only companies with deep
pockets will be able to afford these,
preventing greater competition in
the future.
If similar deals become more
widespread over time, Barclays
Capital analysts warned that the
internet is likely to fragment into
multiple managed services with those
having the ability to pay (like Apple
and Netlfix) seeking preferential
access to the last mile.
“While this is likely to raise
questions on net neutrality, in our
view, this is likely to be a completely
different commercial service offered
by cable companies to companies
like Apple who want to have an off
network presence apart from a
presence on the internet,” wrote
Kannan Venkateshwar and Benjamin.
Reitzes in an equity research note.
“In fact, this is likely to flip the
whole net neutrality debate on its
head as large internet companies like
Apple and Google, who have been
supposedly the victims of the net
neutrality debate thus far, are likely
to actively seek an alternative path
outside the internet for higher quality
of service, especially when it comes
to video. Therefore, instead of the
entire focus of net neutrality being
on the distribution leg, we believe
increasing focus is also likely to
be paid to the edge providers,”
they added.
It is a discussion that is likely to
run and run for some time to come.
News analysis
TiVo sees Horizon TV opportunities one
year after Liberty-Virgin deal
Goran Nastic looks at TiVo’s relationship with Liberty Global the
company’s wider European ambitions
TiVo sees interesting opportunities
across the Liberty Global footprint,
including some integration with the
Horizon TV service. The company is
talking to more cablenets but says
there is a “fear” of decision making
on advanced platforms which is
stifling progress.
When LGI acquired Virgin Media
a year or so ago there was
widespread speculation at Cable
Congress 2013 whether that meant
it would ditch the popular TiVo
brand in the UK in favour of its own
multi-million Horizon gateway and
user experience. Fast forward 12
months and it seems that TiVo has
far loftier ambitions.
“The discussion now is different.
We have a closer relationship with
LGI and hope there are more things
we can do perhaps outside of the
Virgin Media footprint although it’s
premature to talk about anything
specific. We know a lot more about
their needs and them about our
technology so there may be some
interesting opportunities there,”
Naveen Chopra, CFO and senior
VP of corporate development
and strategy at TiVo told CSI
at the March Cable Congress
in Amsterdam.
Another opportunity is mixing
the TiVo and Horizon platforms
underneath the hood. “There’s a
lot of technology below, inside the
two UXs, that end users don’t see
Source: TiVo
and that’s where you may see
some more blending but again
there is nothing specific yet,”
said Chopra.
Chopra also outlined the
complexities of integrating Netflix
with cable set-top boxes, something
it has achieved in the US and also
Virgin Media and Com Hem in
Sweden. “The first time we did
it was quite challenging and we
think that’s why to this date there
is only one cable software platform
that has integrated Netflix. It’s not
trivial. There’s a lot of unique
technology that Netflix uses you
have to carefully integrate into
the experience and do that in a
way that doesn’t feel siloed for the
consumer. So the first time it
was quite a lift,” he noted.
It was recently announced that
over 2.5 cable customers across the
company’s three partners in Europe
– Virgin Media, Com Hem and
Span’s Ono - now use the company’s
technology, which Chopra largely
attributes to its ability to simplify the
consumer experience.
Given TiVo’s success in its three
European markets – indeed, the three
MSO partners regularly praise the
service and the impact it has had on
viewing, ARPU and other metrics –
why hasn’t it been taken up by more
European MSOs?
Chopra admitted this is a question
TiVo asks itself and alludes to cable’s
more conservative tendencies
it is traditionally known for. “The
pace of decision making is not as
fast as we’d like it to be. We don’t
see a lot of operators who are
investing in advanced platforms,
or doing so with vastly different
partners. It seems to be more that
there’s a fear of making a decision
Source: TiVo
on advanced platforms. There’s too
many people trying to do take
individual unique approaches as
opposed to leveraging a lot of
what’s already out there.
“We hope the pace in investing
in those types of projects begins
to quicken (something that LGI
executives called for at last year’s
Cable Congress). I think that will
start to change as momentum
continues to build and competitive
environment continues to grow,”
Chopra said, adding that TiVo
is in discussions with a number
of European MSOs, although it
was to soon to know how these
will pan out.
news in brief
Yahoo may do original
programming
Yahoo is reportedly planning to
make its own TV shows, part of a
strategy to shift advertisers’
budgets to online. The online
giant aims to schedule tenepisode, half-hour comedies with
per-episode budgets ranging from
$700,000 to a few million dollars,
according to the Wall Street
Journal. The projects would be
led by writers and directors with
television experience.
Europe gets African OTT
content
Pan-African bouquet Seeafrika is
deploying RGB technology to
enable the delivery of its over-thetop video services targeting
millions of users across Europe.
Seeafrika plans to roll out 30
channels to subscribers in the
initial stage of its deployment.
While its OTT services are aimed
predominantly at viewers using
Android and iOS-based devices,
this is expected to expand to any
IP-enabled device as Seeafrika’s
subscription base grows.
Imagine acquires Digital
Rapids
Imagine Communications has
acquired Digital Rapids as it
pursues its new multi-screen
strategy. Imagine recently split
from Harris Broadcast to focus
exclusively on IP, software, cloud
and TV Everywhere, which the
acquisition of Digital Rapids
should compliment. The Toronto
company’s software-based
workflow management,
transcoding and encoding
solutions will integrate with
Imagine’s existing mezzanine
quality origination encoding,
ABR transcoding and CDN
software. Terms of the acqusition
were not disclosed.
www.csimagazine.com
May-June 2014
11
Analyst corner
The end of the line
for linear 3DTV?
The number of linear 3DTV channel closures is now
exceeding the number of launches
T
hree years after first launch,
the future for linear 3DTV
looks bleak. The number of
3DTV channel closures is
now exceeding the number of
launches. That’s not the sort
of trend that signals a bright
and rosy future. Pay TV operators across the world
are shutting down their 3DTV channels, usually
citing lack of viewership. Our analysis includes
only true linear 3DTV channels and excludes
on-demand services and test channels, but
nonetheless, it looks increasingly like the nail is
firmly in the coffin of 3DTV.
Early evangelists for 3DTV spoke in awe of
the viewing experience that 3DTV offered, live
football was screened in 3D to great fanfare in
pubs across the globe and 3D movies that enjoyed
some success in cinemas were seen as the perfect
content to transfer to the next-generation of
in-home viewing experience.
All along the value chain, 3DTV offered a
lifeline. For TV manufacturers, 3DTV offered the
latest shield in an ever-expanding feature list that
allowed them to battle the price commoditisation
that manufacturers face on an annual basis.
For infrastructure owners, the high bandwidthdemanding 3DTV channels (compared to
standard definition), came along just as HDTV
looked to be slowing. For pay TV operators,
3DTV represented the latest premium offering,
either as a direct tier up-sell, or as a value-add
for the most important (read highest value)
customers.
Every industry player, then, had a vested
interest in 3DTV being a success. And yet, it
seems, it has failed. Therein lies an important
moral that reminds us of that most important
part of the TV value chain: the viewer.
Number of active 3DTV channels
30.0
25.0
#channels
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
2010
2011
Western Europe
Asia-Pacific
North America
12 May-June 2014
2012
2013
2014
Central and Eastern Europe
Middle-East and Africa
Central and South America
www.csimagazine.com
The experience failed
3DTV was never going to
work as a mass-market
in-home consumer
proposition because, simply,
it did not add a compelling
experience to the majority
of viewing. Let’s not forget
that the average person
watches between four and
five hours of television
every day. 3DTV was just
not interesting for the
majority of that viewing,
nor did it fit with the way
in which people actually
watch much of their TV,
requiring total focus and
attention and, of course, a
pair of glasses.
You may ask; so what?
None of that should impact
its viability for movies or sports,
the content which formed the
core of most 3DTV channels.
What this illustrates is that for
a new means of TV to work, it
has to work for everyone. By
way of example, compare and
contrast HDTV which, despite
a slower start in terms of
channel launches than 3DTV,
continues to grow 15 years on.
Over-the-top and catch-up also represent
compelling examples; simple improvements that
add something valuable and compelling to any
type of TV content and enhance the overall
viewing experience.
So where does 3D stand today? There are
currently 26 active dedicated 3D channels
across the world. Operators were relatively quick
to jump on the 3D bandwagon with 19 net
launches in 2010, year one for 3DTV. Growth
of 3D channels began to slow in 2012, resulting
in a drop in the number of available 3D channels,
with closures outpacing launches in 2013.
The majority of 3D channels (88%) are pay
services and 14 of the 16 channel closures to date
have been pay channels, a clear indication of lack
of viewer interest translated into harsh
commercial realities.
3DTV may well have a limited future in the
home in the form of occasional use on-demand
for special events and movies, but even that is
likely to be niche because lack of overall interest
and available content means many going forward
will not even have the means to view 3DTV.
Viewers have voted with their feet, leaving
3DTV apparently dead in the water, but also
leaving the industry with a valuable lesson that
speaks to other current and future ‘enhancements’
to the TV experience.
Guy Bisson is research
director, television, at IHS
Screen Digest. In this regular
column, he gives CSI readers
exclusive insight from the
company’s new channel strategies service
2014
20 to 22 May 2014
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Satellite TV
The end of DTH?
Anna Tobin looks at what the future holds for direct-to-home
satellite in a world increasingly going towards on-demand
viewing and multi-screen broadband delivery
F
or the generation before us,
satellite was the future of
television. For countries that
had previously relied on
terrestrial analogue television
it opened up a whole new
multichannel world. For
territories that relied on cable TV provision, it
bought TV signals into areas that were too remote
for a cable link up.
The interactive media revolution, however, has
meant that many viewers are being told to ‘go
back’ in order to move forward. While we rely on
local wireless networks, the vast majority of those
WiFi hubs are connected to a local physical cable
or broadband lead to a network to facilitate twoway communication. So, as many of us now rely
on the ‘lead’, is satellite delivered television
entering its twilight years?
Two-way or the highway?
While two-way satellite communication is
possible, at the moment it’s costly, slow and often
unreliable, it can’t currently compete with cable
and fibre-optic broadband, but this doesn’t mean
that DTH is on the road to extinction, according
to Simen Frostad, chairman of Bridge
Technologies.
Credit Suisse DTH TV channel and transponder model for Extended Europe
(number of channels)
Video market forecast
2012
2013E
2014E
2015E
2016E
2017E
HD channels
1,184
1,480
1,806
2,167
2,600
3,120
growth y/y
48.6%
25.0%
22.0%
20.0%
20.0%
20.0%
Ultra HD (4k)
0
5
35
80
120
190
600.0%
128.6%
50.0%
58.3%
growth y/y
3D Channels
27
45
60
70
75
79
growth y/y
80.0%
66.7%
33.3%
16.7%
7.1%
5.0%
SD Channels
10,433
10,694
10,908
11,017
11,072
11,072
growth y/y
2.8%
2.5%
2.0%
1.0%
0.5%
0.0%
TV Channels
11,644
12,224
12,808
13,334
13,867
14,461
Growth
6.0%
5.0%
4.8%
4.1%
4.0%
4.3%
HD channels
10.2%
12.1%
14.1%
16.2%
18.7%
21.6%
Ultra HD channels
0.0%
0.0%
0.3%
0.6%
0.9%
1.3%
3D channels
0.2%
0.4%
0.5%
0.5%
0.5%
0.5%
SD channels
89.6%
87.5%
85.2%
82.6%
79.8%
76.6%
650
780
As % of total
Transponder demand
Ch/trpx
Trpx for HD
4
296
370
451
542
Trpx for Ultra HD
3
0
2
12
27
40
63
Trpx for 3D
3
9
15
20
23
25
26
Trpx for SD
12
869
891
909
918
923
923
Transponder demand
1,174
1,278
1,392
1,510
1,638
1,792
growth
9.2%
8.8%
8.9%
8.5%
8.5%
9.4%
Source: Company data, Credit Suisse estimates
14
May-June 2014
www.csimagazine.com
“The cold fact is that
DTH satellite is really a
one-way technology and
the interactivity that the
viewers want works a lot
better with natural twoway technologies,”
Frostad says, “but satellite
TV won’t disappear.
“What you have to remember is that not
everyone has access to a good cable or high
bandwidth ADSL line. Satellite is extremely
distributable over vast distances and so for a lot of
people satellite will still be the only way that they
can access content,” he adds.
As fibre and cable have not penetrated deep
enough to allow fast reliable connections to rural
areas, satellite will be the only way that
individuals and businesses in remote places can
get high speed broadband and broadcast services.
And with broadband and cable companies
reluctant to invest in covering the distances that
linking up rural areas requires, satellite is likely to
see growth in this market.
If you look at the figures, DTH TV has nothing
to worry about, points out Markus Fritz, director
of commercial development and marketing at
Eutelsat, noting that it is still growing faster than
cable and broadband in many markets. Indeed,
the company has some half dozen new satellites
scheduled for launch by the end of 2016, much
like rivals SES and Intelsat.
“In terms of audience,” he says, “the satellite
universe continues to expand, with one in three
TV homes worldwide forecast to be satelliteequipped by 2017, compared to one in four in
2012. The dynamic of satellite channels also
remains strong with forecasts that the 34,000
channels recorded in 2013 will increase to 47,000
worldwide by 2022.”
Despite the proliferation of online content
through OTT video services, traditional TV is still
the focal point of many homes. So rather than
doing away with one or the other, today’s
broadcasters need an end-to-end broadcasting
solution capable of delivering both, argues Simon
Kay, MD of RRsat Europe. For that reason,
RRsat is of the belief that satellite based TV isn’t
going anywhere. “In fact, we are increasing the
number of satellites on which we have
transponders and expanding our satellite services
into a more rounded workflow. We view online
TV as an extension of traditional TV,” says Kay.
Satellite TV
A hybrid future
Satellite’s market share will really vary from
territory to territory, points out Steve Plunkett,
chief technology officer at Red Bee Media.
“Satellite still provides universal reach and is
still cost effective for large scale distribution and
concurrent viewing. Its use will be increasingly
geographically dependent though and where
fibre and performant broadband exists then
satellites’ role will be increasingly deployed in
a hybrid model.”
With most DTH set top boxes now coming
with Ethernet ports as standard, a hybrid offering
is becoming the norm for many DTH operators
looking to create an effective interactive gateway
into the home.
Bringing connectivity to satellite TV is the new
frontier with multiple points of entry, sums up
Fritz. “It can be addressed through hybrid
networks that optimise the efficiency of satellites
for broadcasting and terrestrial networks for the
return link. In areas with low or no terrestrial
network, stand-alone satellite solutions can
provide interactive broadcast services.
“Eutelsat has made significant progress on this
front with the ‘Smart LNB’, a low-cost device that
bundles DTH reception of TV channels with a
narrowband satellite return channel for short
transmissions of IP packets. It opens the door for
broadcasters to operate their own ecosystem of
linear television and connected TV services direct
by satellite.
“For end users, it uses the coaxial cabling of
existing installations to connect to a home IP
network and is compatible with connected TVs,
tablets and other IP-compatible devices, as well as
legacy DVB-S2 receivers,” says Fritz.
To further future-proof their systems, many
satellite providers are looking to partner or buy up
cable and broadband rivals and do streaming
deals with rights providers so that they can have
some control over what comes through that
Ethernet lead. Sky in the UK, for example, is now
moving outside of its DTH subscriber base with
its streamed Now TV service. Whilst Dish in the
US has signed a ground-breaking streaming deal
with Disney so that it can also offer content
outside of its members-only walled garden.
Sky Italia is also set to follow suit, but these
moves into OTT are not without risk for DTH
providers: they could hemorrhage their existing
pay-TV subscriber bases in the process.
The long-term future of dishes on the roofs of
our houses isn’t only going to be guaranteed by
adapting and opening up the technology, stresses
Philippe Mansion, director of strategic marketing
at Globecast. ‘To succeed satellite needs effective
hybrid complementarities and creativity on
“With HEVC and the
evolution of DVB-S2,
we believe we will be
able to transmit
around five Ultra HD
4k channels at 50 or
60 frames per second
in a 36 MHz
transponder.”
www.csimagazine.com
May-June 2014
15
Satellite TV
“The dynamic of
satellite channels also
remains strong with
forecasts that the
34,000 channels
recorded in 2013 will
increase to 47,000
worldwide by 2022.”
business models and pricing.
“The advantage of satellites as ‘bent pipes’ is
that they have the potential of being flexible
enough for the many adaptations they may need.
In order to remain competitive, however, satellite
companies will require having a good strategic
vision, being effective on execution, but also
having a broader view and considering the media
ecosystem as a whole, instead of remaining in
their traditional walled garden,” argues Mansion.
Content rights: still king
Aside from the technical spec, satellite providers
will be able to survive for many years to come just
by wielding their might in the rights market too.
Linear TV rights, particularly for major live
events, will remain important and good linear
content is still very much a DTH universal selling
point (USP), albeit one that cash-rich telcos and
over-the-top players are looking to muscle into.
“They might not be able to compete with other
16
May-June 2014
operators on interactivity without a cable or
broadband add-on,” states Frostad at Bridge
Technologies, “but they can compete on content.
They have long-term rights contracts and deep
and strong relationships with the rights holders.
“DTH still has a lot of legacy. Satellite and
terrestrial providers are still the ones with the
rights to most key events and satellite operators
do have the ability to push out an enormous
amount of channels of live content. In Norway,
for the Olympics, for example, we had one main
channel and five parallel channels, all with great
Olympic content. It’s rights to events such as this
that means that satellite is here to stay,” surmises
Frostad.
Rights is a major factor in keeping and growing
high quality live TV over satellite to TVs and
other connected devices more economical.
Hochner at SatLink says: “With more and
more trials of satellite with IP applications, such
as those tested by SES and Eutelsat, it is clear
that the technology is at a point where it will soon
become commercially viable. This will signal a
new media world for the satellite market, as it
allows operators to expand to multi-user wireless
terminals.”
And with the move to standardise the delivery
of push content through the HbbTV initiative, the
change in delivery should be almost seamless
from the end users’ perspective.
“The HbbTV initiative to standardise a solution
to push content over a DVB network - satellite or
the DTH subscriber base and gimmicks will also
help to reduce churn. Although 3D TV hasn’t
taken off quite as predicted, many are still pinning
their hopes on the emergence of 4k satellite
services as a crowd pleaser. David Hochner, CEO
of SatLink Communications, believes that the
launch of this ultra high definition TV will spark
a new demand for satellite services. Satellites,
unlike some terrestrial systems, have the
bandwidth availability and the coverage to deliver
this immediately.
4k is the next development on the horizon,
reiterates Fritz at Eutelsat. “Eutelsat has already
launched demo 4k channels, including a channel
with HEVC encoding aimed at being decoded by
ultra HD set top boxes equipped with chipsets
that will feed consumer sets,” he explains.
“We believe that by 2015, DVB-S2 will allow
more information to be transported in a satellite
transponder and this could coincide with the
availability of set-top boxes with HEVC chipsets
operating up to 60 frames per second. With
HEVC and the evolution of DVB-S2, we believe
we will be able to transmit around five Ultra HD
4k channels at 50 or 60 frames per second in a 36
MHz transponder. This would be with a bitrate
per channel a little higher than one current
MPEG-4 HD channel, but with four times the
resolution and twice the frame rate for a more
comfortable and immersive viewing experience.”
DTT - is very interesting,” says Jean-Marc Racine,
managing partner at Farncombe. “Assuming this
specification gets integrated in TV sets, it would
allow large audiences to benefit from push
content, and bring the dual advantage to enable
on-demand usage in households, without the
adequate broadband speed, as well as potentially
offloading IP network for highly popular content.”
It is, however, vital to tap in to all the added
value streams that satellite IP can deliver points
out Plunkett at Red Bee Media. “Developments
such as IP-LNBs show how a hybrid service can
deliver more value than single transport networks.
The use of satellite to seed content to in home
DVRs for VoD viewing, based on personalised
content recommendations is another.”
Peter Ostapiuk, VP of media product
management at Intelsat, does not regard the
growth of OTT)/TV Everywhere as a threat to
satellite distribution but, interestingly, does see
the balance of on-demand versus linear viewing as
crucial for satellite’s long term future: “OTT
platforms offer very little live content for now so
as long as there is raw demand for linear, whether
last mile over broadband, cable or DTH there will
be a role for satellite. The long term threat is
more content availability. Will viewers retain
loyalty to linear viewing or will they shift purely to
on-demand?” he wonders.
For now, a combination of their commercial
might, their vast universal broadcast footprints,
their commitment to ever improving image quality
and their immense bandwidth potential, means
that satellite DTH services are here to stay – for
the medium term at least. Direct-to-home satellite
TV is just becoming direct-to-anywhere satellite
TV and if you want interactivity, they will get it to
you one way or another.
Opening a new world with satellite IP
The development of satellite IP applications
making the medium as transportable as traditional
IPTV over any IP network will also add value.
Broadpeak, for example, has just teamed with
Eutelsat to integrate its nanoCDN with Eutelsat’s
smart LNB technologies to make the delivery of
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RDK
Towards RDK 2.0...
and beyond
the mainline developers
at Comcast and RDK
Management. However,
collaboration requires
the base platform to be
reasonably stable and
now RDK 2.0 has been
released, which includes
How has the reference design kit changed since it was
a major reworking of the
introduced and how is it likely to evolve from here? Stephen
base architecture to
Cousins reports
include a new RDK
Media Framework, I’m
t is almost two years since Comcast’s
technology, there are also reasons for caution.
expecting to see a more active community being
Reference Design Kit (RDK) was first
The technology is still in its early stages of
channelled into the mainline RDK.”
demonstrated at the Cable Show and
development and so far only Comcast has
Due to the number of players in the ecosystem
support for the technology continues to
rolled out RDK-enabled boxes extensively,
and the intentional ability for operators and
gain momentum as service providers,
having integrated the software into its X1 and
vendors to pick which components will be used
hardware manufacturers, software
X2 IP video gateways. Some have questioned
from within the RDK
developers, device manufacturers and
whether the common framework provided by
for a project, the other challenge is to maintain
others adopt the open source approach to set-top
the RDK goes far enough, focused as it is on the
hardware and software portability between the
box (STB) and gateway development.
middleware and lower levels of the software stack,
different OEMs and the different software
The RDK pre-integrated software bundle,
which leaves room for fragmentation related to
vendors. Pace says it is working in collaboration
which provides a common framework for
development of applications, the user interface
with the RDK community to ensure that hardware
powering IP or hybrid STB and gateway devices,
and the user experience. In addition, the open
portability and software interoperability are
has now been licensed by over 125 companies,
source nature of the initiative, which encourages
maintained between vendors via a process of
including 15 TV service providers worldwide.
licensees to contribute knowledge to inform future
compliance and certification.
Major cable operators that have signed-up over
releases of the RDK, may have a while to go to
the last 12 months include international company
reach its full potential.
What the RDK does, and doesn’t do
Liberty Global and German number one Kabel
“We licensed the RDK and released the
The strong support for the RDK among cable
Deutschland, which signals a growing move
Comcast X1 gateway based on it last year,” said
operators is, for the main part, the result of
toward getting the RDK into European markets.
Cornel Ciocirlan, CTO for EMEA at Arris.
increasing competition from the CE industry and
Last summer saw the launch of RDK
“Although the collaborative model is showing
OTT providers. Operators know that to attract
Management, formed by partners Comcast and
promise, right now there doesn’t appear to have
and retain customers they must accelerate time to
Time Warner Cable, an independent entity set
been many contributions to the code outside of
market for their CPE and make it easier to change
up to administer the RDK and oversee licensing,
features and functionality to meet with customer
training, community support and coordination
demand.
of the all-important software code on a global
By providing a pre-defined stack of lower and
scale. Liberty became the third partner in RDK
middle layer software for STBs and gateways, it
Management in February this year.
allows them to standardise certain elements of
And there are encouraging signs among other
devices, freeing up more time to customise the
industry players that the RDK could become a
applications and user experiences that ride on
more widespread approach to STB development.
top. Essentially, it means they get to develop once
Last month, Steve Calzone, director of video
and then scale across multiple environments,
applications development at Cox
whether that’s using current generation
Communications, the US’ third-largest cable
CableCard/QAM/MPEG-2 technology, or in
operator, said it was time to leave the OpenCable
future-oriented IP environments.
Application Platform behind and emphasized
Given the forthcoming major shifts in the
the need for a new development platform “that
industry, such as the move towards ARM
looks like RDK,” he said. Although Cox is still
processors, faster STBs, and devices capable of
in the evaluation phase with the RDK and hasn’t
handling 3D graphics and Open GL, the existence
yet signed on to be an official licensee of the
of a strong RDK platform should also help ease
technology.
the transition between platforms.
Despite this fanfare of support for the
“One of our ongoing challenges is helping non-
I
“Although the
collaborative model
is showing promise,
right now there
doesn’t appear to
have been many
contributions to the
code outside of the
mainline developers.”
18
May-June 2014
www.csimagazine.com
RDK
licensees understand what the RDK is NOT,” says
Steve Heeb, president and general manager of
RDK Management. “The RDK is not an
operating system, application platform, or UI
platform. It was created to accelerate the
deployment of next-gen video products and
services by providing transparency through access
to device subcomponents. The RDK code is
located beneath, and independent of, the
application framework or UE/UX/UI layer of
these devices. So, the consumer experience that
differentiates an operator’s service is still created
and managed by the individual TV service
providers and their partners.”
Comcast claims the RDK can slash as much as
50% off the typical two-year development cycle for
an STB or gateway, and although at this early
stage it is hard to prove whether that is true, there
is evidence that it is helping speed software
innovation.
Michael Brenner at Cisco claims in the
vendor’s initial customer projects thus far it was
able to deliver RDK-based CPE in short time
frames. “Hrvatski Telekom is a strong example of
that. For this delivery, we leveraged RDK-based
CPE combined with Cisco Videoscape cloud
software and services to take the service from
conception to deployment within the extremely
short 50-day time frame as mandated by the
customer,” he points out.
“By bringing transparency to the STB software
stack, the RDK is allowing operators to speed
Web development using HTML5,” says Kirk
Edwardson, head of marketing at Espial, which
will soon deliver an RDK-based STB to a tier 1
US cable operator, which will leverage its own
application framework and an HTML5 UX. “For
example, we’ve been able to rapidly develop and
launch a new concept in zapper navigation that
uses the speed and agility of HTML5 to improve
the UX... The RDK also allowed us to more
quickly get our application framework up and
working across STBs from different
manufacturers. These apps were developed and
launched in weeks rather than the months that it
would have taken based on previous proprietary
STB infrastructure. As RDK matures, we expect
to see this trend line continue with lower costs
and faster development times.”
However, tier 2 or tier 3 cable operators
working without significant resources might find
it harder to make the transition to an RDK-based
system at present, says Arris’s Ciocirlan. “The
www.csimagazine.com
May-June 2014
19
RDK
The RDK software stack
happens between the screens, but also other info
flows such as Twitter feeds.”
likes of Comcast and Kabel Deutschland can
sustain a development and system integration
programme around RDK, others will need the
help of people like us to pre-package the elements
of an RDK solution into something that works.”
Currently, for instance, operators are able to
choose RDK-compliant middleware and UI
components from Seachange, Espial, Alticast, and
Pace, the latter of which sees the choice of
software components increasing as the framework
matures with RDK2.0 and 2.1.
The European and global picture
The growing interest in the RDK by European
operators, and in particular the direct support
shown by Liberty Global (owner of Virgin Media
and UPC) and Kabel Deutschland, raises the
question of how relevant the system is to
European cable requirements?
The release of RDK 2.0 essentially freed it
from US-only requirements, including the Open
Cable Application Platform reference design, and
added in the components needed to handle the
popular European standard DVB. That’s on top of
existing elements including CableLabs’ ‘Reference
Implementation’ for AP and tru2way, the Java
Virtual Machine, plus important open source
components such as Gstreamer, QT and WebKit,
which are execution environments that can be
“One of our ongoing
challenges is helping
non-licensees
understand what
the RDK is NOT.”
20
May-June 2014
tailored to each operator’s needs. RDK 2.0 also
incorporates optional plug-ins such as Adobe
Flash and Smooth HD.
The RDK also needs to be enhanced to
support European Teletext and parental rating
management standards. In addition, European
service providers seek open and modular client
software architectures, which has implications
on the software layers above the RDK, according
to Cisco’s Brenner.
“At present we have our own version of a
European RDK, other platform providers and
operators have theirs,” says Ciocirlan at Arris.
“The key question is, as an industry do we need
to converge on a set of base components that
become part of the main RDK tree, providing
things like subtitles, DVD-SI, DVD signalling,
DVD-CAS etc, or other things missing from the
RDK mainline release developed for the US.”
Edwardson at Espial adds: “We do expect to
see increased global support as RDK adopts
DVB and potentially international hybrid
standards as well.”
Pace, which has worked with Comcast since
RDK’s inception, sees substantial interest from
the global operator community.
In global terms, implementing the RDK raise a
number of new challenges related to how users
navigate, access and purchase content. The code
creates scope for greater personalisation of
content and new multi-screen capabilities, such as
using a mobile device as the controller. “But this
really cool stuff in the RDK doesn’t work if you
don’t have all of the OSS/BSS technology behind
it working correctly,” says Ed Finegold, director of
marketing at Netcracker. “This is driving more
complex requirements for real-time entitlements,
payments, and integrating buy-button capabilities.
It also enables various multi-screen interactions
whereby you have to synchronize not just what
www.csimagazine.com
The code is key
The future success of the RDK will ultimately
hinge on the stability and capability of its base
code, which is being developed in an open source
environment where licensees can contribute new
adaptations or additions to it in the hope they
will be integrated into the official RDK stack.
In September, S3 Group was awarded the
critical job of managing the RDK code repository
and ensuring the stability and integrity of RDK
code releases.
“The cornerstone of the code management
effort so far has been to build and manage a
formal, cloud-hosted Code Management Facility,”
says Philip Brennan, VP for TV technology at S3
Group. “This provides the mechanism for RDK
licensees to contribute code and follow the
progress of code contributions from anywhere
in the world. The system is used for code reviews,
automated checks on the code contributions,
and transparent and prompt communication
about contributions, which are made visible to
the entire RDK community. Members are
encouraged to ‘vote with their code’... they have
an inherent obligation to stay current on the
code and our job is to help make it easy for
them to do that.”
Looking to the future, RDK Management
says community members are now looking at
expanding the RDK into other CPE, such as
modems or routers, which like STBs, have
historically lacked a baseline of commonality
and standardisation that could be enhanced
by the RDK. There is also talk of RDK being
extended into the telco world.
“The industry is also expecting further
evolution towards converged gateway devices
capable of handling video, data, and voice
from a single device. Those devices will require
an underlying software stack that is open and
transparent, and would be a natural extension
for the RDK. The RDK was designed to provide
a common software foundation to power
consumer premise equipment for today and
the future,” concludes Heeb.
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OTT Services
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Interview
Q &A
The cable guy
Goran Nastic spoke to Cable Labs CTO Ralph Brown at this year’s Cable Congress about the
opportunities and challenges facing cable, including mobility, community WiFi, DOCSIS 3.1 and CCAP
vs remote PHY.
Ralph Brown
Goran Nastic: We’ve
heard a lot at this show
about how great cable is,
but is there anything you
think that cable is not so
good at?
Ralph Brown: One
is mobility, having a
mobility play is one
area the industry has
struggled. There’s a
broad variety of models
they are experimenting
with and it’s interesting with cable because you
have a diversity of models that people try out.
You can get a sense of what works and what
doesn’t. Some of the MVNOs in Europe are more
successful than in the US. We’re seeing a lot of
different things play out. So mobility is an area
where there is a lot of opportunity and a need.
We’ll have to answer the question somehow but
I don’t think there’s one answer and I don’t think
we’ve found which of those models will be
most successful.
In fact, wireless has been mentioned and discussed
at Cable Congress 2014 much more
than in previous years. Is this a sign that cable
is finally ready to take WiFi more seriously?
It’s happening globally because the infrastructure
is less expensive, things like spectrum cost. There
are some appealing things about WiFi. There are
some limitations but those are being addressed
through technology. It’s a big opportunity and if
you look at value being delivered to customers it’s
pretty significant. In the US, we are seeing 60-70%
WiFi offload of data traffic among smartphones
and tablets. That delivers value to customers
because they are not spending money on their
mobile data plans and it adds to the value of their
broadband subscription.
There are two models in the way we think
22 May-June 2014
about it at Cable Labs. There are public hotspots
and we see Virgin Media being active across the
London Underground recently and cable MSOs
in the US have over 250,000 public hotspots and
they are aggregating those through
interconnection and roaming relationships to
expand their footprint. Then there is community
WiFi, which are hotspots typically built into the
cable modem. What that does is it creates a
second SSID or network identifier for the WiFi
that’s in the home that can be used for roaming,
where customers either within the same cable
operator or across these roaming relationships
can get WiFi through those access points in the
home. Ziggo has a million of these HomeSpots
(and Liberty Global has plans for four million
by the end of the summer) and it seems like the
Europeans have definitely been deploying that
sort of thing. So there are a couple of different
strategies and approaches to deployment and
we’ll see a mix of public and community plays.
One challenge/opportunity highlighted
by MSOs here has been seamlessly integrating
4G services with WiFi. Can Cable Labs help on
this front?
We have done a couple of things. Passpoint,
originally called Hotspot 2.0, was created by the
WiFi Alliance and the Wireless Broadband
Alliance to enable seamless access to WiFi
hotspots. That involves things like device
authentication. We participated in the
development of those standards within the
WFA and WBA and contributed the certificate
structure and the provisioning of those certificates
because not all WiFi devices have SIMs. In
addition, Cable Labs has been involved in
3GPP over the years and in fact IMS, the IP
Multimedia System that 3GPP defined for IP QoS
and applications, all of the cable requirements are
part of IMS now. So a cable operator can buy an
IMS core and it supports all of the things
www.csimagazine.com
required for MSOs to deploy primarily wireline
service, but it would also be integrated with other
kinds of services.
What we did most recently is we normalised
that AAA interface so the ability to present a set
of credentials and roam across both 4G and WiFi
networks is possible, it uses the same backend. So
we’ve aligned all of those 3G, 4G and WiFi
roaming interfaces. The opportunity is there
although there is more that needs to be done in
terms of handsets to implement that functionality.
Managing the policies about which network to use
is something that is also not specified, so there is
opportunity there too for different kinds of
implementations depending on who is the
network operator and who has the customer.
There’s seamless roaming for data and also call
continuity switching from one network to another.
Today you can do that with cellular phones but
going back and forth from an LTE network to a
WiFi network – making the continuity of that
handoff seamless - is still something that needs to
be perfected and, again, implemented in the
handset. It’s part of the types of things we are
working on.
Away from wireless, is it fair to say that DOCSIS
3.1 is your other key priority?
That would be a safe assumption [laughs].
It’s going well. The specs were last October,
ahead of schedule. We’ve issued a 2nd revision
to those. The silicon manufacturers are furiously
developing the silicon and we expect to see some
early implementations end of this year and early
next year have some preliminary products to
begin validating. So potentially we could see
some 3.1 gear in the field for trials in 2015.
We did set some very aggressive schedules and
it’s been borne out in being able to stick to those
timelines. One of our measures is that if the
vendor community is complaining then we’re
pushing hard enough!
Interview
But 3.0 was not that old or that bad, so why
the rush?
I think you’re seeing competitive pressures from
telcos and new entrants in the fibre market. There
is some level of demand for the speed and you
have to meet it. If you look at the trajectory of
offered speed, sometime in 2016 you will get
to 1Gbps as the maximum; yes, you could do
that with 3.0 but that would expensive and not
as efficient as it could be. With 3.1 we’ve
introduced OFDM and LDPC to offer almost
twice the bits per second per Hertz that QAM
does. That 2x improvement makes it a lot more
realistic to deploy it. Those are really the drivers.
3.0 was designed to have a fair bit of
headroom, in other words we specified a
minimum in 3.0 of four downstream and four
upstream and we’ve blown past that a long time
ago, there was no maximum number of channels
you could bond in the upstream and downstream.
You’re seeing today offerings of 500Mbps here in
Europe on DOCSIS 3.0, but it’s just anticipating
demand and looking at market trends – from a
competitive standpoint you can’t stand still and
rest on your laurels.
Kabel Deutschland said that only 0.25% of its
network is RFoG enabled. Can this technology aid
with 3.1 efforts?
Here’s the interesting thing about fibre-to-thepremise (FTTP). In the US and North America,
the focus of FTTP has largely been around
business services. Developers of Greenfield sites
and new housing developments see fibre as a
differentiator, a premium, so a pull exists in those
areas and the cost is pretty much the same as
deploying coax.
RFoG is convenient because you reuse all the
terminals etc, you basically take cable RF
spectrum you modulate it over fibre and
demodulate over coax in the home. There are lots
of options in terms of taking fibre to the home,
another of which is EPON, and at Cable Labs we
created DOCSIS provisioning of EPON, which
basically says that the EPON network looks just
like a cable modem network and you manage and
provision it in the same way. There are some
“One of our measures
is that if the vendor
community is
complaining then
we’re pushing hard
enough!”
we’re now in the process of working through what
that specification needs to be. But there are
multiple scenarios and one size does not fit all.
In general we don’t tell manufacturers how to
build implementations, ie whether integrated or
modular or anywhere in between, but where you
want to have interoperability among multiple
suppliers there needs to be a standard interface
and that’s where we come into play. So between
the remote PHY access infrastructure and the
core there needs to be a standardised interface
and some of that is an extension of what we’ve
done in the modular CMDT (M-CMTS) realm.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the Netlix/
Comcast peering deal. How do you see it and what
do you think it means for the future of OTT video?
I think there’s been a lot of misperception
because it’s a standard peering relationship.
Comcast has been doing this for years, it’s the
basis for how peering has been done. It’s about
improving the customer experience which
required a direct peering relationship.
benefits and trade-offs compared to RFoG but
again some MSOs have used it to target the
enterprise sector in North America.
The challenge being offering CATV services
you move from traditional QAM distribution to
an IP distribution for digital TV and that’s a
tradition that many of our members are in the
midst of. RFoG is an expedient and sometimes
interim solution in that migration.
And how do distributed PHY and CCAP fit in with
this transition?
CCAP is a highly centralised version of DOCSIS
while others are not fibre rich but have fibre deep
and there’s benefit to using digital optics to get
from headend out to the node or hub area so that
you get improved signal-to-noise ratio and
distributed access architecture is service a smaller
service group so less homes passed. There are
definite advantages in certain circumstances to
pushing the remote PHY out into the node area.
One of the things we got from China is
C-DOCSIS architecture which postulated a
remote PHY as one of the implantations and
Will the traditional peering model change?
You want to make sure the incentives are aligned
so that the benefit in investing and growing the
network accrues to the people making the
investment. If you get the business incentives out
of line you won’t get the investment you need.
Those peering relationship are the right example
for that sort of thing. And the market has done
well in those types of things. You’ve seen public
skirmishes but they finally get resolved.
Finally, in your position as CTO of Cable Labs,
what would you change with the cable industry if
you could?
That’s an interesting one. There is a lot of
opportunity for the cable industry that we’re very
interested in seeing in terms of global alignment.
To the extent that we can play a role there that’s
what gets me excited. I think the industry is
positioned well to capitalise on that in a way that
competitors necessarily aren’t. So I would say
embrace that global scale and seek to maximise
the industry’s benefit from that.
www.csimagazine.com
May-June 2014
23
Conference review
Cable looks to a more
wireless future
it already has one million HomeSpots
deployed with four million planned by
this summer.
Ziggo spoke of seamless mobility
and ubiquitous networks, making 4G
and WiFi work together, something
that Cable Labs is working on from
both mobile and data angles in terms
of provisioning, call continuity, policy
management and other practicalities.
(You can read more about this trend
and HomeSpots in our interview
with Cable Labs CTO Ralph Brown
on page 22, the group’s work in this area and
his thoughts on where the industry overall is
heading to.)
Cable Congress 2014 saw the industry more focused
on a wireless and mobility play than at any other time
previously. Goran Nastic reports
C
able has for some time
now placed more emphasis
on broadband than its TV
business, but this year
marked a noticeable increase
in rhetoric as far as the
wireless and mobility side of
the equation was involved. Rather than the odd
mention or one panel session dedicated to the topic
found in years gone by, Cable Congress 2014 was
awash with talk about how this side of the business
can enhance the overall cable experience, and this
talk was backed up with hard case studies and
developments coming out of the operator
community, vendors and Cable Labs.
WiFi and 4G both featured strongly on the
agenda across the three days of the conference,
which was this time held in Amsterdam with 800+
visitors. It was generally agreed that cable MSOs
need to get involved with mobile or wireless – and
that those who don’t will not be around in ten
years’ time. It’s hard to see a market in Europe
where a cable MSO would be successful in the
next ten years without a mobile play,” said
Diederik Karsten, EVP European Broadband
Operations for Liberty Global.
24
May-June 2014
Having a mobility play is an area where the
cable industry has traditionally struggled and it
seems it was ready to put things right.
There’s a broad variety of models MSOs
are experimenting with, and most operators are
still looking to which strategy will prove most
successful for them. Liberty said it was running,
or would introduce, MVNOs to complement cable
and WiFi platforms, initially in the Netherlands,
Belgium, Switzerland, Austria and the UK. While
there is no one answer to this question - for
example an MVNO model won’t work for
everyone - it was clear that some form of fixedmobile convergence is essential.
WiFi is seen a less costly option to cellular and
offers opportunities for WiFi offload (in the US
60-70% of data is offloaded onto WiFi networks).
Quad play bundles are increasingly emerging,
meanwhile, and there are options to use cable to
backhaul WiFi hotspots, HomeSpots, and small
cells. HomeSpots in particular, also known as
community WiFi, are emerging as a popular
option with European service providers. Telenet,
Ziggo and Liberty are among the MSOs deploying
HomeSpots, hotspots built into the cable modem
that can be used for roaming as well. Liberty said
www.csimagazine.com
Wireless completes us, says cable
The general agreement was a vision of cable and
mobile/wireless working in future harmony.
“Every cable operator should be doing WiFi.
Wireless completes us,” said Ronny Verhelst,
CEO of Telecolumbus, which mainly serves 1.5
million homes in Germany’s eastern region. And
for Verhelst, convergence is driven by simplicity
for the customer. The executives from the last
panel of the day, which also included Com Hem
and Ono, agreed that a mobile/wireless play
enhances the overall cable experience.
“Mobile and convergence is extremely
important for all of us as cable operators,” said
Com Hem’s new executive chairman Andrew
Barron, who has experience of WiFi and MVNO
operations with Virgin Mobile.
“If you don’t have mobile as a cable operator it
doesn’t make you a bad company, but it is a
fundamental piece in all that we do,” said Barron.
“You run a mobile business a lot differently as a
cable operator than you do as a mobile operator,”
he added, however.
On other topics, Cable Europe said it sees big
opportunities in the emerging Internet of Things
landscape from technical and business
perspectives, arguing that MSOs should position
themselves on this front. IoT will be important for
the future of data and broadband, meanwhile,
continues to drive European cable revenues as TV
continues to stall or drop, although digital TV
subs at least grew by 7.6% to 30.86 million in
2013 year, now making up 54.4% of total cable
TV subscriptions.
Viewpoint
Simulscreen
advertising
Twitter is only a block
building the bridge
Twitter is not the only way for
broadcasters and advertisers
to bridge the TV and online
world. As broadcast reshapes
itself to tackle the time-shifted
consumption challenge, being
able to target consumers on
every screen is crucial.
Although Twitter is a
preferred medium to discuss
shows, broadcasters and advertisers are also
leveraging Facebook’s reach to ensure audiences
receive non-intrusive targeted advertising. Pilot
campaigns have shown that syncing advertising
between the TV and companion screen, be a PC,
tablet or smartphone, increases click-through
rates, ensuring each advert reaches maximum
viewers with the right message at the right time.
Contrary to Twitter, which is most naturally
used to broadcast content, Facebook provides
detailed information about the viewer. This allows
for granular targeting, and potential upsell for
brands. To achieve this, broadcasters, brands and
agencies need to work hand in hand to devise
simulscreen strategies that are aimed at ‘Alwayson’ audiences such as the Millennials, who are
notoriously hard to pin down.
Simulscreen advertising can help brands and
agencies to immediately act upon the viewer’s
purchasing intent and closes the gap between
brand awareness — dominated by TV — and the
final transaction online. A recent pilot, conducted
by Civolution and Brand Networks’ Optimal
Social unit, demonstrated that synchronising TV
ads between the TV and the viewer’s Facebook
timeline saw a 60% lift in consumer click-through
rate compared to traditional commercials,
showing improved advertising effectiveness when
combining online and broadcast.
If Twitter plays an important part in the
programme buzz and potential success,
broadcasters and advertisers are increasingly
looking for ways to regain the viewer’s attention
as it shifts from one screen to the next. Bridging
the gap between social and digital, as well as
creating real-time cross-screen experiences, is
spearheading a new advertising and programming
revolution; and this is only the beginning.
There is more to social TV than just Twitter; Facebook
provides its own merits for broadcasters and advertisers,
argues Andy Nobbs
T
he past few years have seen
Twitter and television
converge closer together to
create new use cases,
including better consumer
interaction with programming
through second screen apps
or new native advertising formats. Various
initiatives show there is a symbiotic relationship
between TV and digital advertising emerging and
although this is in its infancy, the results are
already promising.
Second screen is now widely adopted, and
deployments can be found in every corner of the
globe. Broadcasters, content producers,
advertisers and brands now consider companion
devices as an intrinsic part of TV distribution.
Meanwhile, end users increasingly take to social
media as soon as their favourite program or sport
event starts, and often before. This has led many
broadcasters to develop second screen apps
blending original content and social media
integration, radically transforming the way
audiences interact with programming. Social is
trending and leveraging powerhouse platforms
such as Twitter is key for many broadcasters who
want to (re)gain the younger audience.
Examples of efficient second screen apps
utilizing social integration include live events,
such as the Grand National race broadcast on
Britain’s Channel4 and extended via the Horse
Tracker app; game shows catering for all
audiences, including children as advertised by
Italy’s SuperTV channel and its Super! app or the
Chinese Idol app. All of these apps enable the
viewer to better engage, enabling broadcasters to
reduce churn and increase their ratings as more
and more viewers shift their interest.
Second screen apps can help brands,
advertisers and advertising agencies enrich the
way they interact with consumers. These apps
have the potential to create more effective ad by
synchronising ads across multiple screens.
eMarketer predicts that video ad spend will
surge by 40% in 2014 and generate $5.75 billion compared to $68.5 billion on TV - leading
broadcasters to rethink their media buying
strategies. Instead of focusing on the traditional
TV space, they are starting to harness the power
of simulscreen advertising to increase their
revenues. In order to fill that social ad hole,
Twitter announced in March 2014 that it is
further entering the TV advertising market with
the launch of its first ethnic targeting system. The
Hispanic population is particularly active on
Twitter - according to recent research stating that
63% of Hispanics like to tweet their comments
about what they see on TV. Although this new
feature is specifically devised for Hispanic
audiences, broadcasters and marketers can expect
it to expand to every group. This diversity is
particularly relevant for European and Asian
markets, where targeting a specific audience
becomes a real challenge: the global Nielsen
model that consists in measuring household
consumption of content is under threat,
especially in terms of advertising, as households
become increasingly multicultural.
Andy Nobbs is CMO at Civolution
www.csimagazine.com
May-June 2014
25
Connected home
Enabling the
connected home
favorite television
programs and movies to
DLNA Certified
products such as digital
televisions, tablets,
smart phones, Blu-ray
disc players and video
How can operators and content owners enhance their
game consoles.
offer within the home to increase ARPU and create new
Studios are promoting
the use of link protection
opportunities?
for premium content
distribution, such as
ith the rapid
DLNA and CVP-2 enhancements
DTCP-IP (Digital Transmission Content
proliferation
The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a
Protection for Internet Protocol, also for DLNA
of connected
standards consortium that has created guidelines
Premium Video). At the same time there is a
devices, the
for media sharing and distribution among
sharp increase in video display devices that are
home
Consumer Electronics (CE) devices. DLNA was
not DTCP-IP capable. Since content security and
network has
originally designed for Local Area network
integrity remain the primary concerns of content
emerged as
connectivity and Personal content (movies,
rights owners, they are understandably reluctant
the meeting point of the Consumers Electronics
pictures, music).
to allow distribution of high value content to such
and Pay-TV worlds: devices can discover the home
Since then, DLNA has expanded the guidelines
“uncontrolled” devices.
network, become aware of each other, and share
and added Commercial Video Profile-2 (CVP-2)
On the other hand, offering DLNA within
content subject to content usage rules.
Premium Video sharing and link layer protection.
their home media gateways comes with potential
Standardization initiatives are essential to ensure
With DLNA Premium Video, service providers
security issues for pay-TV operators. Opening
interoperability and compatibility in this new era.
can offer consumers the ability to stream their
their platforms to devices that are not controlled
could lead to security threats. Even so,
supporting the broadest range of device types is a
must for operators to offer competitive TV
Every¬where services.
W
Devices
Content enters the home from multiple sources
with different usage rules (constraints) that
depend on the business rules defined by the
content owner, to be enforced by the pay-TV
operator. The media consumption devices belong
to different device families:
• Residential Gateway (RGW) or Set-top Box
(STB)
• Second STB, e.g. low-cost (possibly retail)
“zapper” STB with no PVR
• Connected/Smart TV and STB
• Apple iOS devices: iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini,
iPod
• Android devices, e.g. Samsung Galaxy tablets
and smart phones
• Windows Phone platforms
• Game Consoles e.g. Wii, PlayStation, Xbox
• Desktop computing platforms: Windows OS,
Mac OS
• Any Digital Media Access device, such as
Portable Media Players
26
May-June 2014
www.csimagazine.com
Connected home
The challenge of offering a competitive TV
Everywhere service, and the associated content
security, lies in coping with the mix of managed
(often operator-provided) devices and unmanaged
CE devices. This is where ACCESS and
Verimatrix offer a joint solution for pay-TV
operators.
DTCP-IP
The concept of a residential gateway (RGW)
device, such as ViewRight Gateway, is gaining
more attention with the aim of minimizing the
number of STBs in the home (typically a
significant capital expense for the service
operator), while leveraging other devices already
in the home such as Connected TVs, PCs, game
consoles, etc. DLNA enables such a business
model by treating a single DVR or RGW as a
Digital Media Server (DMS), which receives the
service provider’s content and redistributes it
within the home to client devices called Digital
Media Players (DMP) or Digital Media Renderers
(DMR).
This model may also be extended from
recorded/stored content on the DVR/RGW to live
linear content, with or without the intermediate
recording step.
For premium content, DLNA provides a
mechanism to signal content protection in the
Content Directory Service (CDS) via a
standardized MIME type. By default, DLNA
supports Digital Transmission Content Protection
for Internet Protocol (DTCP-IP)
link protection that is independent of the
conditional access (CA)/digital rights
management (DRM) used to deliver the content
to the home. When DTCP-IP is used, the DMS
terminates the service provider’s CAS/DRM,
decrypts the content and re-encrypts it for further
distribution within the home over DTCP-IP.
Challenges of DLNA content distribution
DLNA guidelines create a very powerful
framework for effective content sharing using a
home network. However, just using the technology
may not fully address all relevant issues for payTV content distribution. The following list
outlines possible shortfalls:
Domain Control. Typically a pay-TV operator
has full control of how many subscriber devices
(e.g. STBs) there are in a home and will charge
the user accordingly. With DLNA the operator
can deliver content to the DVR/RGW but then
have no direct control over how many devices
the content can be re-distributed to within
the home.
Content Protection. Another potential issue is
that many devices that carry the DLNA logo do
not support DTCP-IP link protection as it is
optional and not necessary for sharing photos or
music within the home. Moreover, makers of PCs
and mobile devices may defer DTCP-IP adoption
due to perceived complexity of implementing the
DTLA (Digital Transmission Licensing
Administrator, LLC).
Copy Control. CAS/DRM systems typically
deliver content with a set of Copy Control
Information (CCI) and Usage Rules. DLNA via
DTCP-IP has a limited mechanism to propagate
this control and while it may suffice for simple
streaming to other devices in the home it is not
adequate for copying or moving content within
the home domain.
Also, operators may desire to limit the period
of time a consumer can store a recording in the
home. This is easily achievable with many
traditional CAS and DRM systems, but DTCP-IP
does not come with an adequate set of rights
expressions to propagate these rules throughout
the home.
Transcoding. DLNA defines several different
video formats and delivery protocols, which
may make devices in a home incompatible
with each other. Moreover, there will always
be some devices in the home not suitable for
playing HD content. Transcoding somewhere
in the home is one possible solution, but this
requirement adds another complication when
dealing with protected content.
Content rating. Broadcasters and service
operators are often required to provide content
ratings and enforce parental controls. DLNA
has no such requirement although it has an
ability to communicate content rating in the
metadata provided by the CDS but actual
enforcement is up to the client device. It would be
preferable if an authorized user could set up the
parental rating limit once and have it consistently
enforced by all devices.
Remote access. DLNA has been designed
explicitly for the local home network only. This
prevents sharing of content outside of the home
even though there are non-DLNA products that
allow consumers to do this today. It would be
desirable to be able search the home network
content remotely but then stream it directly, for
instance from a Network DVR. This way the
consumer has access to the content he/she owns
regardless of the location.
Logging and reporting. Logging and Reporting
is a typical feature that is not part of protocol
specifications, thus making it challenging to
provide evidence that the business rules and
rights have been respected.
User Interface. Consumers subscribing to
a satellite or cable service with whole home
DVR capability expect a consistent look & feel,
navigation and an overall user experience to be
at least consistent if not identical across all of
the TV screens. Today, CE vendors put their
own look & feel on the end device to preserve
their branding. DLNA defined now the CVP-2
Premium Video Guidelines to overcome this
problem and allows Remote User Interface (RUI)
technology based on HTML5. However, just
implementing the standard does not remove
the need to implement a mechanism that enables
Service provider to control the Video distribution.
The approach taken by ACCESS and
Verimatrix within the networked home
environment, in order to address the challenges of
DLNA redistribution as already identified above,
is based on the tight integration of NetFront and
VCAS to deliver and end-to-end solution that
lever¬ages the DLNA standard while providing
the fine grain control that pay-TV operators
require.
The central concept is that of explicit VCAS
support for ViewRight Gate¬way as a special type
of ViewRight client, and the extension of device
management for this type of client in order to
more actively enable the control of DTCP-IP
devices.
This is an excerpt from a joint ACCESS-Verimatrix
White Paper, entitled ‘Connected home solution for
pay-TV’
www.csimagazine.com
May-June 2014
27
Data centres
Beer, curry… and data
Strict levels
of security are
complemented by
measures of hygiene
that would make a
Goran Nastic was invited to visit Interxion’s ultra-secure
hospital proud. Many
data centre located on the side of London’s famous
of the walls have hand
Brick Lane
disinfectants while the
floors and surfaces are
spotlessly clean. This is to prevent the build-up
of ‘zinc whiskers’ that could damage the cables,
servers and other equipment, according to Dr
Graeme Creasey, Interxion’s director of
operations, who acted as our on-site guide.
Power and cooling are done to a similarly
Visitors have to go through ‘man traps’ to
get in and out of the data centre
T
hose with a fondness for spicy
Indian food will know Brick
Lane in central London for
being synonymous with curry
restaurants frequented by
locals and tourists alike. But
very few will also know that
inside a non-descript building next to one of these
restaurants is the London HQ of Interxion, a
cloud- and carrier-neutral colocation data centre
provider, which operates two such facilities
sandwiched between bustling bars in the area.
Interxion supports over 1,400 customers
through 36 data centres – nine of which are in
Frankfurt - across 11 European countries through
which it claims it can access 90% of European
broadband users.
CSI was treated to an inside look at one of
the company’s data centres, a multi-storey 4,500
square metre building boasting airport style
security that requires all visitors to pass through
so-called ‘man-traps’ (see picture 1). On top of
biometric authentication at each door inside the
building, CCTV cameras in every room and
28
May-June 2014
The servers can be found in a specially
cooled secure space
corridor and security personnel, these traps act as
an additional layer of physical site security.
Essentially, they are an enclosed area by the main
entrance where things like weight can be checked
to make sure an individual isn’t carrying, for
example, any hardware when leaving the building.
(Needless to say that virtual threats are taken
equally, if not more, seriously).
www.csimagazine.com
obsessive level. In fact, most of the ground floor
is dedicated to powering the facility, with
numerous transformers in the rectification room
engaged in a process that converts power from
‘dirty’ to clean, ie oscillating at 50Hz. In addition,
multiple generators and other backup redundancy
systems can be found here should something go
wrong with the power grid (these have never had
to be used, Dr Creasey claims). Interxion even
has multiple fuel routes designated with different
contractors should the need arise and has 48
hours of spare diesel to keep things running.
Indeed, details like this are also argued to be
one of the benefits of locating a data centre in the
middle of an urban hub: the little that is lost in
terms of security compared to facilities inside old
military bunkers or other remote facilities is
counterbalanced by superior latency and
connectivity. In this case, Interxion’s data centre
sits on top of a major internet backbone
connected by dozens of large multi-national
carriers that guarantees end-to-end latency, a large
pool of CDNs and 99.999% SLAs, which then
underpin the SLAs to broadcasters and other
customers ultimately served by Interxion.
The ‘meet-me’ room above acts as the crossconnection point where thousands of cables
intersect in an organised and coordinated manner
from the multiple carriers. Last but not least, the
all-important servers work in a cool room inside
yet another locked and even cooler space that
traps the cold air (see picture 2).
So if you’re a broadcaster, payTV operator,
gaming company, OTT player or other service
provider looking for ways to reach end-users and
new territories then you could do worse than
choose a modern collocated data centre to handle
your services needs
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Intercall • Qualcomm • Tour de France • TV 2 • UEFA Champions League and more
KEYNOTES
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Produced by
CSI Converging Home Summit 2014
7 – 8th May 2014, IoD Hub, London
THIS EVENT IS FREE TO ATTEND
Register now to be in with the chance of winning a Kindle Fire
This two-day conference looks at emerging opportunities in home networking and the still embryonic smart home market and how
different and often disparate stakeholders can work together to create and tap into new business models created by this converging
landscape. Panels will be dedicated to second screen and companion apps; cloud TV and virtual set-top boxes; search & discovery;
Big Data & analytics; future of TV; home networking and the smart home.
A must attend event for: OTT providers, Content Owners, Operators, ISP’s and Telcos, Broadcasters, Vendors’ Service Providers,
Analysts, Consultants, Press, Energy Suppliers, Utility Companies, Smart Home Retailers and Providers, Energy Management
Professionals
Reasons to attend this key event:
• Expert speakers • Technology updates • Interactive discussions • Networking opportunities • Exhibitions and live demos
Day 1 - OTT/TV Convergence
Day 2 - Home Networking and the Smart Home
This day will examine some of the key themes affecting the
TV industry, as the internet effect begins to tighten its grip
on the television landscape. Relevant trends will feature
throughout, from the cloud and virtualisation, to search and
discovery, analytics and multi-screen/companion devices. The
day will consist of panel discussions and case study
presentations.
This day will explore home networking and new smart home
initiatives in security, energy, home control and automation,
as well as longer term opportunities. The solutions and
strategies necessary for success in this emerging market will
be discussed, as will the role of the home gateway. The
smart home has slowly emerged as a topic of conversation
at industry gatherings as players attempt to understand the
potential market. These are still very early days, with a lot of
education and learning necessary among all players.
Register now: www.csimagazine.com/summit
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Speaking at the event are:
For the latest news and updates about the CSI Converging Home Summit follow us @CSISummit #CSIsummit14.
To book your place:
For sponsorship opportunities:
For media partnerships:
Rebecca-Amie Reeves
+44 (0)207 562 2417
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+44 (0)207 562 2427
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+44 (0)207 562 2426
[email protected]
Media Partners
Research Partner
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Summit 2014
Hosted by
page thirty one
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CSI Awards 2014
The CSI Awards 2014 – Enter Now
Deadline for entries fast approaching
Awards ceremony, Friday 12 September 2014, IBC, Amsterdam
Established in 2003 the awards are among the most
prestigious and competitive technology awards in the
industry, designed to recognise and reward innovation and
excellence in the cable, satellite, broadcast, IPTV, telco,
broadband/OTT video, mobile TV and associated sectors.
This year, we are excited to introduce two BRAND NEW
categories in the form of HbbTV technology or service,
which is gaining traction in both Europe and globally, and
the Big Data & analytics innovation award, an emerging
area of opportunity in the TV space.
The CSI Awards categories
1. Best digital video processing technology
10. Best IPTV technology or service
2. Best cable or fibre contribution/distribution/transmission solution
11. Best mobile TV technology or service
3. Best satellite contribution/distribution/transmission solution
12. Best Web TV technology or service
4. Best monitoring or network management solution
13. Best Ultra HD TV Technology or project
5. Best customer premise technology
14. Best TV Everywhere/multi-screen video
6. Best workflow/asset management/automation solution
15. Best Social TV technology, service or application
7. Best content protection technology
16. Best Contribution to TV Accessibility
8. Best content-on-demand solution
17. Best HbbTV technology or service - NEW
9. Best interactive TV technology or application
18. Best data & analytics innovation - NEW
page thirty two
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Awards 2014
CSI magazine
l
Awards
CSI Awards 2014
The 2014 judging panel includes
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Dr.KlausIllgner-Fehns,ManagingDirector,IRT
Dr.RogerBlakeway,President,SCTE (Society for Broadband Professionals)
WilliamCooper,FounderandChief Executive,Interactive Media and Convergent Communications Consultancy,
informitv
AndrewGlasspool,Founder,ManagingPartner,Farncombe
Jeff Heynen,PrincipalAnalyst,Broadband Access and Pay TV, Infonetics Research
PhilipHunter,IndependentWritingandEditingProfessional
KenMcCann,DirectorandCo-Founder,ZetaCast
Jean-MarcRacine,ManagingPartner,Farncombe
PeterWhite,CEO,Rethink Technology Research
Best Contribution to TV Accessibility judges
•
•
•
ProfessorJonathanFreeman,ManagingDirector,i2 Media Research
GuidoGybels,ICT Expert
SteveTyler,Headof Solutions,StrategyandPlanning,RNIB
How to enter
The CSI Awards ceremony
The awards are open to any company or organisation
supplying relevant products, software or services and embrace
the entire ecosystem, from production and playout through to
transmission and in-home distribution and end-user devices.
The CSI Award winners will be exclusively announced at
the annual awards ceremony on Friday 12 September 2014
at IBC, Amsterdam. The event will take place from
6:00pm - 7.30pm in room E102 and will include drinks
and canapes.
Choose your categories and complete the online entry
form today.
Please join us for what will be a wonderful evening.
Best of luck with your entries! For the latest news and updates about the CSI Awards
follow us @CSIAwards #CSIAwards
ENTER NOW: www.csimagazine.com/awards
For awards or entry enquiries:
For sponsorship enquiries:
For marketing enquiries:
Hayley Kempen, Head of Events
+44 (0)207 562 2439
[email protected]
Tiro Bestonso, Commercial Manager
+44 (0)207 562 2427
[email protected]
Sarah Whittington, Marketing Manager
+44 (0)207 562 2426
[email protected]
CSI magazine
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Awards 2014
page thirty three
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In association with
Conference 2014
TV Accessibility Conference
5th June 2014
DTG Offices, London
This event is FREE to attend. Register today for a chance
to win a Kindle Fire
TheonlyconferencetohighlighttheopportunitiesandchallengesfacedbyTV
accessibilityinanincreasinglyconnectedandfragmentedlandscape.
Topics include:
• Ofcom’sliveTVsubtitlingand
regulatoryupdate
• Improvingsubtitling
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In association with
5th June 2014
DTG Offices, London
Millions of people are affected by some form of visual or hearing impairment and when combined with an ageing population
accessibility services should be seen a key strategic priority for regulators, service providers and broadcasters.
Exacerbating the need for a shift in attitude is the shift in viewing habits taking place, with linear TV on the main TV set still the
dominant form of consumption but one increasingly complimented by other forms of viewing. Is there need for a new debate of how
accessibility is defined going forward? Is there a need for a more rigorous set of standards covering specific access service in this new
world? How do we even out the disparity between the online world and broadcast world?
This conference will highlight the opportunities and challenges faced by TV accessibility in an increasingly connected and fragmented
landscape.
Topspeakersonthedayinclude
Mike Armstrong
Senior R&D Engineer
BBC R&D
Jonathan Freeman
Managing Director
i2 Media Research
Peter Bourton
Head of TV Content Policy
OFCOM
Andrew Lambourne
Business Development Director
Screen Subtitling Systems
Susie Buckridge
Director of Product
YouView TV Limited
Steve Tyler
Head of Solutions Strategy and Planning
RNIB
Panellists
Gavin Evans, Director, Digital Accessibility Centre
Gareth Ford-Williams, Head of Accessibility UX&D, BBC Future Media
Vanessa Furey, Senior Campaigner, Action on Hearing Loss
Guido Gybels, Technology Innovation and Policy Expert
Pete Johnson Chief Executive Officer ATVOD
David Padmore, Director of Access Services, Red Bee Media
Paul Robinson, Principal, PR Media Consulting
Rohan Slaughter, Assistant Principal, Scope
Steve Tyler, Head of Solutions, Strategy and Planning, RNIB
Malcolm Wright, Managing Director, Signpost at ITV
Soledad Zarate, Visiting Lecturer, UCL
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Industry column
Where are we now
with ultra-HD?
manufacturing and retailing to all
corners of the TV and film industry. It’s
important that UHD is also a step
change in quality no matter what size
your screen is.
With all of the technical jargon to
one side, we should be focusing on
what matters with Ultra High
Definition. It will be judged as the sum
of its parts - the consumer experience.
The fact is that image quality improves
the television experience through bigger
pictures, more colours and increasing
clarity and fidelity. We must make sure that UHD
becomes the logical evolution of HD.
On-demand 4k will be a big thing in 2014, but we need
a better understanding of UHD from production-side
through to retailers
T
aking the transition from
analogue to digital and the
resultant explosion in channel
choice and add the fact that
consumers are buying bigger
and bigger TVs - then HD
quality begins to look not just
desirable but expected! Before consumers can even
catch their breath though, the industry is pushing
ahead with the next generation of high definition,
ultra-high definition (UHD).
Many of the concerns related to UHD echo
those surrounding HD back at its inception in the
late 1990s, notably the lack of content. However,
with the recent arrival of Netflix’s flagship House
of Cards Series 2 delivered in 4k, the future of TV
just moved a little closer; especially if you own a
superfast broadband connection and a 2014
model of TV from LG, Samsung or Sony.
Driven by the likes of Netflix, on-demand 4k
will be a big feature of 2014 and drive demand for
the format before we start to see better
understanding, more content, bigger adoption of
4k compatible sets and UHD broadcasting in the
medium term.
The recent NAB Show in Las Vegas saw the
predicted explosion of cameras and studio
infrastructure supporting up to 60 frames per
Netflix is shooting and delivering House of
Cards in 4k
36
May-June 2014
second of progressive 2160 line content. Encoders
and decoder chips supporting the new High
Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC) are also now
capable of live operation. The big story around
High Dynamic Range also continues apace.
In the UK, the DTG UK UHD Forum is
creating an end-to-end test bed to understand the
challenges in production, post-production and
delivery with high framerate and high dynamic
range. This will support the industry to deliver the
next-generation TV experience that we hope UHD
will become. Coordination across the production,
acquisition and delivery of content is essential so
that what is produced can be displayed properly
on TVs and no-one’s left behind.
Understanding UHD is not just about the
production-side however and we need people on
the front-line of the consumer experience to be on
board, understand its capability and requirements
and explain to consumers what it is, exactly, to
avoid the confusion created by previous consumer
initiatives like “HD-Ready”.
Retailers, people on the shop floor, are in a
unique position to inform and influence the
consumers purchasing decision, so the DTG has
started running workshops at a high level within
organisations like John Lewis, Tesco and DSG
aimed at communicating the difference, and
benefits, of UHD.
As display technologies evolve the benefits
need to be shared and not just
confined to a select group of
early-adopters or industry
luminaries through delivery in a
sensible, strategic and patient way
to the broadest base. Consumers
will only notice, and respond to, a
compelling difference between
UHD and HD. By boosting the
installed base of compatible sets,
we can drive gains beyond
www.csimagazine.com
Not just about resolution
Currently, 4k is not a revolution, but more about
resolution! There’s a real danger that the industry
will run with the increased resolution at the
expense of other important ideas. Currently these
ideas, or standards, such as colour, sound and
frame-rate have yet to be finalised. If
standardisation lags behind implementation then
all we will see is fragmentation, confusion and
frustration.
The DTG will continue to ensure that the
industry collaborate, both at a UK and
international level, to make sure that the final
implementation of UHD is effective and delivers
the promise of a better experience.
[Simon Gauntlett is appearing at Beyond
HD Masters 2014 on Tuesday 3 June at
BAFTA, London, and The Future of Broadcasting
on Tuesday 24 June at the Waldorf Hilton,
London.]
Simon Gauntlett is technology
director at the DTG, the industry
association for DTV in the UK.
This is the latest in a line of
regular guest columns to
provide CSI readers with updates on the
DTG’s initiatives and activities.
The real
future of
DTG SUMMIT
2014
TV?
20th May 2014 • Kings Place • London
The DTG Summit 2014 will lift the lid on some
of the pertinent and thought-provoking issues
currently facing the industry and ask what is the
real future of TV?
Commentary on the future of
spectrum from the European
Commission
The future of television –
opportunities and challenges
The video to mobile challenge
from EE and Equinix
UK TV platforms showcase
Market updates from
Futuresource Consulting
Ed Vaizey MP
Minister for Culture,
Communications and Creative
Industries
Jeremy Gutsche MBA CFA
Highlights will include:
The rise of the over-the-top
content providers
Keynote speakers
Consumer electronics innovations
The publication of the final
Future of Innovation in
Television Technology
Taskforce report
…and more.
Award winning author, CEO
and Innovation Expert
Jeremy is founder of trendhunter.com
“One of the most sought-after keynote speakers
on the planet”
Anthony Whelan
Director for Electronic
Communication Networks
and Services
European Commission
Registration for the Summit is now open – to avoid disappointment
book your place at www.dtg.org.uk/summit now.
The Summit is free for both DTG members and
members of the Press. Tickets cost £500 + VAT
for non-members.
Use your CSI subscription code to receive 15% off
your DTG Summit ticket: DTGSUM-ANYMPT69
BUSINESS
DIRECTORY
To advertise contact Tiro Bestonso
+44 (0)20 7562 2427
[email protected]
ATX Networks designs, manufactures, markets and delivers a broad range of products to the
global cable television industry. Other sectors served include hospitality, education,
institutional, government and health care.
Rödelheimer Landstrasse 75-85, 60487 Frankfurt am Main,
Deutschland
Tel: +49-17-1998-3676
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.atxnetworks.com
Address: 27 Maylands Avenue, Hemel Hempstead,
Hertfordshire HP2 7DE, UK
Phone: +44 (0)14 42 43 13 00 Fax: +44 (0) 14 42 43 13 01
Website: www.vislink.com Email: [email protected]
Taurus Avenue 105, 2132 LS Hoofddorp
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 23 556 22 22 Fax: +31 23 556 22 40
Email: [email protected] Web: www.irdeto.com
A broad range of digital video products including digital signage & content streaming, bulk
content transition, multichannel encoding, encoding & transcoding, RF & optical transmission,
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VISLINK plc is a global business, strategically focussed on providing secure communication
technologies to customers in our chosen markets.
We have three international business units organised to serve our customers in Broadcast,
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With offices in the UK, USA, Dubai, South Africa and Singapore, and dedicated sales and
engineering teams, VISLINK has the experience and expertise to deliver the most
comprehensive solutions for today’s challenges.
Irdeto empowers companies to protect and monetize their digital assets and maximize return on
content with innovative and reliable software technologies end-to-end solution and services. The
company’s products include conditional access, digital rights management, business support
systems, set-top box software solutions and, through its Cloakware subsidiary, software and
datacenter security. More than 400 customers worldwide trust Irdeto to secure delivery of their
valuable content across digital broadcast, IP, Mobile, enterprise and government networks.
Irdeto solutions currently enable simple to advanced business models on more than one billion
devices and applications.
For more information, please visit www.irdeto.com.
Cisco is the longstanding market-leading supplier of video entertainment. With more than, 7500
video professionals , Cisco is unique in having the scale, resources and breadth of vision to
deliver differentiated solutions to Service Providers.
See what Videoscape Unity can offer, visit www.cisco.com/go/videoscape.
Cisco, One London Road, Staines, Middlesex TW18 4EX
Tel +44 (0)178 484 8500 Fax +44 (0)178 484 8600
Web: cisco.com/go/videoscape
ADB designs, manufactures and deploys solutions to distribute pay-TV and multimedia services
to the connected home, for all types of networks, providing an amazing user experience.
Advanced Digital Broadcast S.A.
Avenue de Tournay 7, CH-1292 Chambesy, Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 799 0799 Fax: +41 22 799 0790
Web: www.adbglobal.com
38
May-June 2014
www.csimagazine.com
ADB believes in a future where multi-media content will come from multiple sources and
seamlessly move between multiple screens and devices, at the user’s preference. The Company
has delivered over 30 million consumer premise devices to a global customer base. ADB’s
innovations and software expertise have been recognized by numerous industry awards.
BUSINESS
DIRECTORY
3400 International Drive, NW, Washington D.C. 20008 USA
Tel: +1 202 944 6800 Fax: +1 202 944 7898
Web: www.intelsat.com
To advertise contact Tiro Bestonso
+44 (0)20 7562 2427
[email protected]
Intelsat is the leading provider of fixed satellite services worldwide. Intelsat supplies video, data
and voice connectivity for leading media and communications companies, Internet Service
Providers and government organizations. Intelsat’s valuable regional video neighborhoods
deliver more television channels than any other system. Intelsat’s terrestrial network of eight
strategically-located teleports and over 36,000 miles of leased fiber complements a global
satellite fleet of more than 50 satellites, covering 99% of the world’s population. Intelsat utilizes
a fully integrated satellite operations model, enabling global delivery from a single platform.
With Intelsat, communications with your customers are closer, by far.
Bridge Technologies designs, develops, and manufactures advanced analysis, measurement, and
monitoring solutions for the digital media, broadcast and telecommunications industries.
Sandakerveien 24c, Building D5
NO-0473 Oslo
Tel: +47 22 38 51 00 Office Switchboard
Tel: +47 22 38 51 01 Office Fax
Web: www.bridgetech.tv
Humax Electronics Co., Ltd, The Mille Building (8th Floor),
1000 Great West Road, Brentford, London TW8 9HH
Web: www.humaxdigital.com
6825 Flanders Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, USA
Tel: +1-858-677-7800 Fax: +1-858-677-7804
Web: www.verimatrix.com
The award-winning VideoBRIDGE series provides an advanced platform for converging TV
services employing stream-based IP packets and all other Digital TV interfaces within DVB and
ATSC for Cable, Terrestrial and Satellite. Compatible with all major industrial standards such as
MPEG-2, h.264/AVC, HTTP based streaming and ETSI TR 101 290, the VideoBRIDGE series
offers a complete end-to-end system for the continuous quality assurance of media services.
The Humax range of award-winning digital TV set-top boxes and recorders for Freeview and
Freesat has a product to suit any TV viewer. Feature rich and technologically advanced, yet
intuitive and easy to use, the Humax range offers the ultimate way to enjoy multi-channel,
subscription-free digital TV, from high definition (HD) and on-demand content, to recording
features and multi-media services.
Verimatrix specializes in securing and enhancing revenue for multi-screen digital TV services
for more than 500 operators around the globe. The award-winning and independently audited
Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS™) and ViewRight® solutions offer an
innovative approach for cable, satellite, terrestrial and IPTV operators to cost-effectively extend
their networks and enable new business models. As the recognized leader in software-based
security solutions for premier service providers, Verimatrix has pioneered the 3-Dimensional
Security approach that offers flexible layers of protection techniques to address evolving
business needs and revenue threats. Maintaining close relationships with major studios,
broadcasters, industry organizations, and its unmatched partner ecosystem enables Verimatrix
to provide a unique perspective on digital TV business issues beyond content security as
operators seek to deliver compelling new services. www.verimatrix.com
EchoStar Europe is dedicated to enabling digital entertainment providers to optimise revenues
by delivering added-value connected device solutions, services and applications. Through a
comprehensive product range, including STBs, DVRs, home networking and TV anywhere
technology, our solutions enable the provision of state-of-the-art and cost effective
entertainment services.
Beckside Design Centre, Millennium Business Park, Station Road,
Steeton, Keighley BD20 6QW, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 1535 659000 Fax: +44 1535 659100
Web: www.echostar.com
Headquartered in the UK, EchoStar Europe comprises a number of business units and is
affiliated with EchoStar Technologies, a subsidiary of the publicly traded EchoStar Corporation
(NASDAQ: SATS).
www.csimagazine.com
May-June 2014
39
Reaching the right audience comes down to a simple equation. Intelsat has
always been forward thinking when it comes to media. When we launched IntelsatOne SM ,
we built the satellite industry’s largest IP/MPLS fiber network to create flexible, hybrid
content delivery options for our customers. And now, we’re introducing Intelsat EpicNG,
our next generation satellite platform, which combines high-throughput spot beams, for
content regionalization and targeting, with wide beams, for total continent coverage.
That’s intelligent design. Good for your operations and your bottom line.
Learn how Intelsat can help you reach more viewers.
Visit www.intelsat.com/Forward-Thinking for details.
Designed for 2030. Launching in 2015.