The impact of pay-TV’s shift to the cloud

Changes in technology and consumer expectations and a desire for more efficient service delivery are driving pay-TV providers to seek cloud-based workflow solutions. In this story in the IBC edition of Cable & Satellite International, Joon Hee, head of Cloud Services for Alticast, discusses the connections between virtualization and Big Data, as well as the implications of virtualization for enterprise and hospitality systems. Alticast will be showcasing a wide range of solutions for pay-TV providers at IBC stand 1.F39 September 9-13 at the RAI Amsterdam.

ALTICAST NAMES NARA WON VP, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND STRATEGY TO DRIVE NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN THE AMERICAS

Nara Won, a technology veteran who blends senior level business development experience with rich engineering expertise, has been named Vice President, Business Development and Strategy for Alticast’s operations throughout the Americas.

“Nara Won will play an integral role in addressing our work with operators in the North American and LATAM markets,” said John Carlucci, president and CTO of Alticast US.  “His strong engineering background, his proven ability to understand industry trends, and his focus on addressing customer needs all will help us capitalize on next-generation video opportunities.”

Won, who most recently had been vice president, business development for Humax Americas, was responsible for the company’s cable industry business activities, including the rollout of STB, gateway, IoT and media hub solutions.  Previously, he had spent more than a decade with Texas Instruments growing from chief application engineer to application manager covering, MP3 CD Player, Digital Still Camera, 3D Sensors, Gesture Recognition, Virtual PC, and etc. Prior to Texas Instruments, he held engineering positions with NHN and Hynix. Won holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

In addition to Won, Alticast also announced two other personnel appointments within its Americas unit: the promotions of 15 year Alticast veteran, Jae Park to vice president, business development and of industry veteran Mike Fallon to vice president, technical service.

CES 2016: ALTICAST INNOVATION DRIVES BUSINESS RESULTS FOR PAY-TV OPERATORS

Alticast will demonstrate at CES 2016 how solutions at the intersection of pay-TV and consumer electronics are enabling cost-effective delivery of new services that engage millennials, enhance video experiences and allow for new services that increase the value of pay-TV bundles.

At its exhibit at the Venetian (Rooms 30-224 and 30-225), Alticast will show examples of its innovation across emerging technologies –including Android, RDK, cloud and IoT services – that build on successful deployments with operators worldwide.

During the January 6-9 event, Alticast will show how:

·       Latin American, U.S. mid-tier and Tier 1 operators can replicate the experiences of a leading Vietnamese operator that successfully deployed a completely integrated suite of Alticast products for delivery of live and on-demand services to low-cost set-top boxes and mobile devices.

·       Pay-TV operators with large footprints of legacy set-top boxes can migrate the user experience to the cloud, enabling delivery of advanced user experiences and personalized services while preserving investment in existing hardware.

·       Operators can engage millennials by simply and cost-effectively implementing an elegant, personalized and sophisticated approach to navigation using multi-pronged metadata connections and state of the art discovery techniques.

·       The versatility of the Alticast Application Framework enables operators to adapt seamlessly to changing market needs by supporting Android-based STB solutions as well as RDK, allowing use of native and HTML5 applications and providing a migration path to IPTV.

·       U.S. mid-tier, Latin American and other operators can partner with CE device manufacturers to create complete solutions that enrich content discovery, including single-search integration between pay-TV and OTT content catalogs and voice-activated navigation.

·       Home automation and other IoT functionality can be aggregated on existing STBs or new data gateways, allowing for partnerships and revenue sources that offer quick time-to-market, while leveraging the operators’ existing broadband infrastructures.

Media and industry analysts interested in meeting with Alticast executives at CES 2016 should contact pspr@att.net to schedule a date and time.

Alticast Appoints John Carlucci President of North American Operations

Cable Industry Veteran Guides Alticast to Greater Success in the Growing North American Cable Market

Alticast, a global partner for the delivery of media entertainment, has promoted its CTO John Carlucci to the newly created role of President of Alticast North America. With more than two decades worth of experience in the cable industry and over 20 patents to his name, Carlucci is widely recognized as an expert in the digital television field and will continue to serve as Alticast’s CTO in addition to taking on the duties of President.

For three years Carlucci has been Alticast’s CTO, playing a key role in the development of the company’s products and solutions.  A pioneer of next-generation user experiences, Carlucci’s work includes Emmy Award-winning, industry-leading designs for both Start Over/Network DVR and switched-digital video (SDV) applications.

“John was the obvious choice when we decided to create the position of President” says Alticast CEO Won Cheol Kang. “His experience, track record of success and outstanding technical expertise make him ideal to serve both as President and CTO and to drive Alticast to even greater achievements.”

Carlucci previously worked for Time Warner Cable (TWC) as the Vice President of Engineering for Polycipher, where he led the cable industry joint venture’s engineering department. Through this he developed security standards and infrastructure for next-generation video networks as well as architected “everything-on-demand video systems” for cable.

Light Reading Webinar on Cloud DVR

Alticast CTO John Carlucci will be participating in a webinar hosted by Light Reading on October 28th at 11AM EDT.  If you are interested in listening in, click here to register.

Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Time: 11:00 am ET

Following Cablevision's successful deployment of network DVR services throughout the New York metro area, Comcast is now rolling out its new Cloud DVR service across its U.S. footprint. At the same time, an increasing number of cable equipment and software suppliers are introducing Cloud DVR solutions to pave the way for more rollouts. In this webinar, we will take a close look at the growing Cloud DVR phenomenon, explore its revenue potential, examine the challenges that lie ahead for cable operators, and see how these challenges can be overcome.

About the Speakers

Alan Breznick, Contributing Analyst, Heavy Reading

Alan Breznick is a business editor and research analyst who has tracked the cable, broadband and video markets like an over-bred bloodhound for more than 20 years. As a senior analyst at Light Reading's research arm, Heavy Reading, for six years, Alan authored numerous reports, columns, white papers and case studies, moderated dozens of webinars, and organized and hosted more than 15 regional conferences on cable, broadband and IPTV technology topics.Before that, he was the founding editor of Light Reading Cable, transforming a monthly newsletter into a daily website. Prior to joining Light Reading, Alan was a broadband analyst for Kinetic Strategies and a contributing analyst for One Touch Intelligence.

Elad Nafshi,VP of Video Product Management, Comcast

Elad Nafshi comes to Comcast with a history and experience both inside and outside the cable industry. That diversity of background has served him well as he has managed the development and deployment of one of the company's largest single initiatives -- Comcast's all digital migration, which represents the world's largest transition to all digital media. In his current role as Vice President of Video Product Management he also leads the company’s key Cloud TV, cloud DVR and network based entertainment initiatives. Prior to this Nafshi held several product development and management roles at Comcast where he led several high-profile initiatives around Interactive Television, Addressable Advertising, Digital Set-Top-Boxes, On-Screen Guides and other key programs. Prior to coming to Comcast, Nafshi was with another cable concern, RCN Corporation, and led the product management and development group as this young company made inroads in a highly competitive industry. He launched a series of game-changing technologies including home security and monitoring, and various premium Internet subscription service that enabled the startup to capture share and consumer awareness against much larger competitors. Mr. Nafshi graduated from The Buchmann School of Law at Tel Aviv University in Israel with a focus on corporate and international law. He also holds a master's in business from the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester in New York, where he specialized in electronic commerce and finance.

Peter Beecroft, VP Product Management, Alcatel-Lucent

Peter joined the Velocix team from Alcatel-Lucent immediately after completion of the acquisition in 2009. Prior to Velocix, Peter contributed to the strategy group for Internet Protocol Routing & Transport (IPRT) at Alcatel Lucent where he was jointly responsible for the initiative which led to the Acquisition of Velocix. Since, 2001 Peter has held a number of product strategy, product management, architecture, Technical pre-sales and solution deployment roles at iMagicTV, Alcatel and Alcatel Lucent. Peter started his career as a Technical Pre-Sales Consultant at a Cambridge based computer company, and has progressed his Telecommunications and Media career through Ionica and BskyB in the UK . Peter is based out of Cambridge, UK and holds a HND in Computing from Cambridge College, England.

John Carlucci, CTO, Alticast

John Carlucci is the Chief Technology Officer at Alticast where he leads product and technology development. John is a technology leader and entrepreneur focusing on digital media and communications including networking, digital multimedia, interactive television, content security, graphics, and grid computing. He contributed to the success of industry stalwarts such as Sony, DiviCom/Harmonic, BigBand Networks and Clearleap. Mr. Carlucci spent half a decade as Chief Network Architect for Time Warner Cable as well as led the engineering department for cable industry joint venture Polycipher as VP of Engineering. His work includes Emmy Award winning industry-leading designs for both Start Over/Network DVR and Switched-digital video. Mr. Carlucci founded social TV pioneer FreedTV, leading development of next generation user video user experience. He has been awarded more than 20 U.S patents. He holds a Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, and a Master's degree in electrical engineer, both from Cornell University College of Engineering.

David Grubb, CTO, ARRIS

David Grubb III is CTO of Cloud Solutions at ARRIS. In this role, he is responsible for focusing on the development of the technology strategy and architecture for the evolution of ARRIS’s multiscreen video, advertising and service assurance software product lines. He is also responsible for leading the end-to-end integration architecture for multiscreen IPTV solutions leveraging the ARRIS product portfolio.Grubb holds nine patents and has published numerous papers on fiber optics and HFC network technology. He has also published and presented at numerous industry conferences. He holds a Master’s of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from Drexel University and a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Rose Hulman Institute of Technology.

Postcard From the Road- KCTA

Alticast demonstrated at KCTA on Jeju Island this week.  Here is a shot from the show!

HDMI Media Express at CES 2014

Watch John Carlucci, Alticast America CTO, discuss the HDMI Media Express with Fred Dawson from ScreenPlays Magazine at CES 2014.

Industry Veteran David Nicholas Joins Alticast

Denver, CO – September 9, 2013 - Alticast, a worldwide leader in deployed interactive television solutions, announced today that David Nicholas has joined the company as Senior Vice President, Sales.  Nicholas brings almost three decades of industry experience to Alticast. David’s most recent position was as Vice President, Sales at iNovo Broadband. 

David has served in executive level positions at Panasonic, BigBand Networks, Symmetricom, N2 Broadband, Concurrent and Phillips Electronics.  Prior to joining iNovo Broadband, he was VP/General Manager, CATV Group at Panasonic, where he was responsible for the refocus and restructuring of the business in the US market.

“Alticast is pleased to have someone with David Nicholas’ insight and experience guiding our North American business activities,“ said Alticast CMO Thomas Jung. “David is well known and respected in our business sector, he will ensure we continue to anticipate, develop and deliver solutions that meet our US and Canadian customers’ revenue and operating goals.”