Livewire

After the departure of Kevin Martin from the FCC, the general consensus seems to be that a la carte video services will be on the back burner in the US.  In the past few years, this is a concept that has been widely sought, analyzed, debated, reported and vilified.  As is to be expected, there are diametrically opposite positions taken by Consumers and Service Providers (Operators & Networks).

Consumers, of course, consistently love a la carte. Why not? Pick and choose, watch whatever you want to, and pay only that much.  “Why should I subsidize expensive channels for others” is a pertinent question raised by consumers. Apart from saving on their video service bills, one of the other major reasons mentioned by consumers is avoiding channels which you don’t want in your house (channels with excessive violence and sexual content). 

Service Providers (Operators & Networks) are united in their stand against a la carte. They feel that it will actually push up the average consumer’s bill significantly. Today, there is a situation where many channels are subsidized by others. So, even if the overall video bill is high, the per-channel delivered cost is very low. In the case of a la carte, prices would be determined by market forces leading to some channels becoming expensive, and others becoming unviable to operate. This would lead to loss of diversity in Video programming.

The regulator in the US (FCC) has published a few reports on this topic. An earlier study (in 2004-05) agreed with the Service Providers that a la carte would push up the consumer’s bill, while a later study (in 2005-06) disagrees. The FCC has no power to mandate a change on this subject – this will require the passage of a law in Congress.

In India, the regulator (TRAI) – has published clear guidelines for a la carte services in the Conditional Access Enabled Cable providers, but no such guidelines for the Direct To Home (DTH) Satellite providers. For a typical selection of channels in India, a la carte digital cable works out to be about 50% cheaper than bundled digital satellite. Of course, the pricing here is not driven purely by market forces – there is a regulation on the maximum rate that can be charged.  A detailed study is needed to understand how the economics works out for the service providers.

I feel the world is moving towards a “consumer chooses” option anyway – Video On Demand, DVR, Online Video – there is a generational shift in Video viewership that is only bound to increase. The next generation is more used to time-shifted video – watching video when they want to.  This entire discussion could become largely irrelevant once this share increases.

Don’t you think Video viewing today is becoming a personal rather than a family experience? Many households have separate televisions for children. Choosing the bundles needed for an entire family is not an easy task – and becomes an expensive proposition.  I feel the family may be better off with a la carte choices for each television.

Networks would benefit by getting a proper count & identity of their subscribers, and will be able to implement better Advertising and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) practices. From the operator’s perspective, advancement in video delivery technologies (switched video) is an enabler.

Any movement towards a la carte can be successful only if regulators, networks & operators jointly think through and make it work.  Especially, the consumer cost per channel and potential loss of niche channels are issues to be carefully managed. A gradual transition is possibly the best way ahead.

I have found mixed reports on a la carte video services in Hong Kong, Canada and some parts of Europe. I request people on this forum to give their views on a la carte video services and instances of successful implementations anywhere in the world.

Posted by Narayan Balasubramanian at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

In one of my posts on Trend Watch (http://www.infosysblogs.com/livewire/2009/04/after_iphone_now_it_is_appstor.html), I had talked about App stores in TV. So what the proposition can be.

To start with may be we can just have some trivial applications on the TV. The ideas for such applications may come from the popular one's on mobile. Of course, the applications will need to be contextualized to TV environment i.e. the font, color resolution, navigation etc. will need to be modified accordingly.But, while the applications on mobile  can be enjoyed by the person who is carrying the mobile in the family, TV applications can be enjoyed by anybody in the family sitting at home. The monetization aspects for a telco can be similar to the way iphone app store works. And the user enjoy's applications anytime anywhere, on any device. 

Extending the same vision may be we can have converged application store. So one not only enjoys applications on mobile and TV, but is also able to carry forward the context from one screen to another. For example: I am playing scrabble game on TV and after some time I have to switch off the application unfinished. So I should be able to save the context on TV and logon from mobile and get the saved context so that I can continue from where I left on TV.

Any thoughts??

Posted by Manish Jain at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

More smart phones flooding the market!!  

Mobile phones are becoming smarter by the day. User experiences they enable and the features they bring to the consumers just keep getting better. A number of device makers including the likes of Samsung, LG, HTC, INQ and Nokia show cased their latest line up that will make the device market even more competitive and will drive more consumers towards smart phones.

Wireless industry becoming “greener”!

“Green” was one of the major buzzwords at CTIA 2009. We saw companies introducing recyclable phones with their bodies made out of recycled materials to the next generation of base stations which reduces the power consumption, space consumption and thereby by reducing the operational costs for the operators. This is one very interesting area that had a lot of emphasis on from various participants and we will have to wait and see what innovations are in the pipe line!!

Mobile Broadband and Service Innovation

One thing that was very clear from various participants at CTIA was that the wireless network infrastructure is at the verge of a major revamp in an effort to move towards 4G (an example is the LTE rollout announcement). Mobile broadband is about to grow much more with rollout of WiMax based networks and other technological innovations that are happening on the network side. What remains to be seen is how all of these are going to benefit the consumers in terms of innovative services and how these services and broadband access becomes more affordable to consumers than before.

Operators are also looking at ways to extend the use of their wireless data networks to much more than just mobile phones. This was very clear from the fact that the major wireless operators were hinting on selling devices like Net Books and Electronic Readers to connect to their data networks to drive data usage. A number of interesting consumer oriented services are also in the horizon varying from connected services (ex: Nokia’s Ovi suite of services) to unified communications (ex: All-in-one mail box  providing a unified interface for SMS, MMS, Emails, Visual Voice Mail, Call history and IP-based telephony). All these will definitely benefit the consumers in terms of the superior user experiences these will enable but the cost factor will be some thing that will be influential for the uptake of such services.

Wireless mobility is becoming a part of the core strategy for many enterprises and industries. This was evident from the key note on day-3 centered on how wireless mobility can revolutionize the health care industry. I am sure that there is definitely a big opportunity that exists for the various enterprises to reach the consumers with mobile enabled services to derive benefits not only to their businesses but also to offer a more compelling user experience. We will have to wait and see how enterprise services reach the consumers on their mobile phones.

I believe there are some pretty interesting times ahead of us with the Wireless industry remaining the most 'happening' industry and I am excited to be a part of it!!

Posted by Sandeep Chandrasekar Seshadri at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

App Stores in high gear!!  

The big story line we saw at this year’s CTIA is the rise of App Stores with yet another App store being launched, this time from Blackberry. In response to the competition, RIM has launched the Blackberry App World, the support for which will be rolled out to all Blackberry phones in the US, UK & Canada. With this launch, nearly every OS maker has launched or has announced the launch of such application marketplaces.

Unlike last year where the focus was primarily on devices like iPhone and Android, this year was more about the applications for these devices. The fact that the consumer appetite to download applications from these storefronts is growing manifold is good news both for the development community and the wireless carriers. These Application Marketplaces are driving higher data revenues for the Wireless carriers who are seeing stagnation, if not decline, in their traditional voice revenues.

What remains to be seen is the ease of search and discovery of relevant applications that the App Stores are going to enable for the consumers in the increasingly crowded marketplace for mobile applications. Also, what will be interesting to see is the process and checks these App Stores will put in place to maintain the quality of the applications that are made available to the consumers in a marketplace that is becoming increasingly “open”.

And the real opportunity will remain open for the Operators to launch their own application marketplaces across their devices (some of them like T-Mobile and China Mobile have announced their plans) as the device-specific 3^rd party app stores will eventually drive revenues from App sales away from the carriers themselves as the carriers start losing their control over what users can purchase and download over their networks.

Posted by Sandeep Chandrasekar Seshadri at 06:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

While techies around the world are still grappling with iPhone Appstore and a slew of similar one's from Microsoft, RIM etc, Verizon recently announced the launch of their "Widget Bazaar" for FiOS TV (http://nab365.bdmetrics.com/NST-2-50202557/Verizon-Getting-Closer-To-Blending-TV-With-Web.aspx) ushering in a new era in the space of convergence by merging web and TV. Verizon's announcement will put pressure on other IPTV middleware vendors like Microsoft, NSN, etc. to roll out a version of their software with support for something similar. AT&T definitely would want something similar and so will Deutsche Telecom, Belgacom and other telco’s around the world who are providing IPTV. Blending of 3-screens: TV, Web, and Mobile is sure to see an explosive growth as CSP’s open up their TV (whether IPTV or cable) infrastructure like the way they have done it for mobile. Let’s get ready for checking news, weather, stock quotes, email in a lean back mode from a lazzy boy chair .

Posted by Manish Jain at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Communication Service Providers around the world are morphing from a simple phone company to a value-added services company spanning the entire gamut of communications, utility, entertainment, and lifestyle services. At the center of all this is their “three-screen strategy”, which combines computer, mobile phone and TV services in a synergistic manner to give the consumers the joy of anytime, anywhere communications and entertainment on virtually any device. Specifically, by leveraging the ubiquity of mobile phones, flexibility of the web and the reach and awesome display capability of TV, it is becoming possible to offer “blended” services with an unprecedented user experience. Examples of such blended services include: 1. Multi-screen Content Storefront: To monetize on the expensive content across multiple screens. 2. Multi-screen Social networking and Entertainment: Allow customers to interact and stay connected from any device and to do viral marketing. Although it is possible to provide these services with current set of capabilities, but that will result in duplication of effort across screens because of application being built multiple times, inconsistent user experience because of tremendous heterogeneity in user interface, navigation techniques, screen size, resolution, and information not shared across screens because of vertically split layers of information exchange. At Infosys, we are building a product called "Convergence Gateway for Multi-Channel Applications" to address above mentioned needs of Communication Service Providers. Convergence Gateway provides frameworks to do user interface rendering, messaging, security, personalization, and advertising across three-screens in a seamless manner. It also provides hooks to integrate with OSS/BSS and for integration with existing SDP's such as that for delivering the final video. It is based on a SOA based architecture that ensures scalability and extensibility.

Posted by Manish Jain at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)