Adding Revenue Through Value-Added Services

In the popularity contest between video services and other subscription services, this Vindicia study leaves no question as to who wears the crown – or where growth potential for our industry lies.  The study talked about how Over-the-Top and Video-on-Demand services are the single most important subscription service to users with multiple online subscriptions, but what is equally intriguing is the vast number of subscription services that offer new opportunities for operators and content providers.

Two key Vindicia findings -- that four in 10 subscribers rank video services highest and that almost 60% of subscribers engage with their favorite service 11 hours a month – speaking to the commanding presence that video has in the market.  At the same time, Vindicia found that an overwhelming majority would be willing to ante up for value-added packages, which could range from simple upgrades from basic to premium services to new opportunities such as digital health or Internet of Things applications.  Three quarters of respondents expressed a willingness to pay an additional $3.99 per month for services that would add value; when the cost was trimmed to an additional $1.99 per month, 84% said they would commit to upgrades.

Here’s how Vindicia’s CEO viewed the results: “First, as long as service providers deliver sustained and obvious value for money, customers will stick around. Second, demand for value-added benefits is so high that service providers can consider it a reliable avenue for significant business expansion. Our survey found that despite the notion that consumers don’t want to add significant financial obligations to their lives, they are very willing to pay for the services they value.”

Our take is that this is exactly the type of data that operators should consider as they explore opportunities in an Internet-of-Things world.  While video will continue to be the primary contributor to operators’ bottom lines, their ability to make their networks the hub of “smart” activity for consumers has the potential to take our industry into the uncharted waters of future growth.

Envisioning an ‘Awesome’ Future for Pay-TV

With online video viewing and Internet of Things strategies on the rise, which technology giants are best positioned to be at the hub of it all?  We believe that the answer may be the pay-TV operators that already are bringing entertainment and broadband services to the home.

In “Alticast Has a Vision For the Future of TV (And It’s Awesome),” CED Magazine discusses how our AltiView 3 user interface and other capabilities that are on the way can position an oft-overlooked device -- the pay-TV set-top box – at the center of the connected home.

Following up on our compelling demo at CES 2016, the CED piece discusses AltiView 3’s contextual ability to “create a web of interrelated viewing selections” based on previous viewing, preferred genres and even program musical soundtracks.  It also supports the emergence of 4K content for leading operators such as our customer, Videotron.

In addition, the piece explains how we’re working on Wi-Fi capabilities that can make STBs the “single gateway into the connected home,” enabling monitoring of smart appliance, sensor and other devices and creating what our U.S. president and CTO John Carlucci calls a “data storm” that can be monetized by pay-TV operators.

The technology on the horizon is transforming how consumers interact with the myriad of devices in their homes.  We look forward to working with our pay-TV operator partners to ensure that are at the center of that innovation.

Alticast on IoT

At last months IBC show, Alticast's Tiaan Schutte, President, EMEA, spoke with Advanced TV on the Smart Home and Internet of Things.  To watch the video, click here:

Internet of Things: A New Business Model

Alticast's President and CTO of the US office, John Carlucci, was invited to speak at last week's INTX 2015 Imagine Park Innovation Showcase. John's topic,"IoT: A New Business Model," was especially relevant as he spoke about bringing software to different set top boxes to subsequently turn them into IoT gateways. Click on the link below to watch his presentation and find out how he thinks this vision benefits both the operator and the customer.

https://intx15.ncta.com/videos/the-internet-of-things-alticast/

CES 2015

From all accounts, the Internet of Things (IoT) was the darling of CES 2015, touted by numerous companies showing a wide range of IoT-based applications from security to healthcare solutions. At CES, Alticast set up at least 12 different demos in a double suite in the Venetian. Like other pioneers in this emerging technology area we presented demonstrations to gain insight from customers, to learn their thoughts on the future directions IoT might take.

We shared our ideas about IoT and explained how cable operators might consider their approach to integrating this burgeoning technology into their existing infrastructure in the home. It seems like a good match as they already have connected hardware that can collect sensor information, they work with a variety of display devices that can be used to view IoT information, they often provide the network within the home and they already have a relationship with the customer.

One of our key demos was with a household provider of aggregated IoT services, offering solutions from furnace control to security.  The integrated demo exemplified how the system would work and the key role operators could play in offering such ss, giving us greater insight as we consider the longer term roadmap for the connected house.ervices. The demo was well received and operators provided insightful feedback which gave us greater insight as we consider the longer term roadmap for the connected house.

Smart Pipe

We hear about cord cutting a lot, but the future holds a very different picture. While cable providers have primarily been about TV content delivery in the past, the critical aspect of TV delivery is the actual pipe they own that provides the service. We like to call this the smart pipe, and the cable operators are busy stepping into delivery of the "internet of things" services adding a lot of new value to their offerings. Home security and automation can all be tied together with this pipe which might include a special gateway for data storage and management. Wireless service in the house will all originate through this pipe, whether it's delivering cable content or other content services. The infrastructure that the cable company provides becomes a key part of every household, whether they watch much TV or not. Lucky for the cable providers, the numbers say we are watching even more video these days! (Notice I said video and not TV...on any device video is provided by a 'pipe'.)

Responsive Web Design

In the early days of the internet and websites when there was no such thing as broadband (or at least for the many), it was really important to focus on optimizing HTML. But as the internet pipes got bigger, optimization initiatives seemed to fall down in priority.

I see a direct parallel to computer processors and software programs. When memory and processing speed was at a minimum, software developers spent a lot of their time optimizing and minimizing their code.  As memory has become cheaper and processors faster, it seems as though programmers have mostly left this practice behind. It's pretty amazing that we now expect to have Gigabytes of highspeed Ram, and Terabyte drives laying around piling up with applications, videos and more. When we run out of storage and memory, we buy more, no need to keep our code neat and compact, or compress our files.

But things are really piling up out there. Video is a one of the biggest storage hogs, with 3D video and 4K requiring even more (although H.265 is helping out), that means even more storage and bandwidth requirements. And now we have to deliver to a huge variety of devices. But I digress...

The cable industry is hedging it's bets on HTML5 as the ubiquitous solution to next generation UI solutions. At least for now, most have gotten over the 'write once run everywhere' dream of HTML5, but many still think it will be the best choice for targeting multiple devices. This brings me back to the core principle; set-top-boxes and other consumer devices do not have unlimited memory. Entertainment is relying more heavily on wifi to delivery streaming content. The Internet of Things wants every device to talk with each other. So while bandwidth is getting better and memory cheaper, there is a population explosion of 'stuff' expecting to share the highway. And to the point, I am starting to see optimization seminars popping up again. Responsive Website Design is an important practice to deliver HTML5 to multiple devices. It's easy for anyone to write HTML5, but how about code that targets TVs, STBs, Tablets, and cellphones that have to constantly update metadata from myriad sources, and meet consumer expectations for quick interactivity and perfect video playback. Embedded HTML5 UIs can be designed to ensure excellent user experiences, but the target platforms and server architecture for data and video access need to be considered up front to ensure success. So as we embark with piling on of all these new capabilities such as 4K, and smart homes with remote camera security and we have multiple screen targets, understanding available methods for faster download and view are important to the overall design goals. I recently listened in on a presentation from Akamai by Guy Podjamy:
 Making Responsive Websites Fast that discussed some good ideas for improving performance. This kind of forethought when developing UIs for television is critical for achieving a successful outcome on all your device targets.

John Carlucci is Spotlighted Among Fellow Expert CTOs

Alticast’s own John Carlucci joined CED Magazine’s annual CTO roundtable along with fellow vendor CTOs from Cisco, Ericsson, ActiveVideo and Imagine Communications. The detailed article covers a wealth of topics and showcases the expertise of the interviewees. Be sure to check out the full article on CED Magazine, but in the meantime we’ve highlighted some of the key takeaways below.

1. The cloud – Cloud services are taking over, and rightly so. The cloud enables services that are incredibly scalable and increasingly virtualized, which both greatly reduce operational costs for most MSOs. Cloud services and virtualization not only allow for the elastic use of resources and lead to endless flexibility in the industry, but are also key driving forces behind two of the current hottest trends: miniaturization and mobile.
2.      .     RDK – The Industry’s major players are all utilizing the Reference Design Kit (RDK), a pre-integrated software bundle developed and licensed to create a common framework for powering IP or hybrid set-top boxes and gateway devices.  CE manufacturers, system-on-a-chip (SoC) vendors, software developers and system integrators have joined MSOs on the RDK bandwagon. RDK brings a standard approach, rather than a proprietary one, which is crucial to increasing the speed of innovation and keeping up as consumer trends continuously evolve.
   3.     Internet of Things – As with other industries, the potential impact that the Internet of Things could have on the cable industry is huge. Also not unlike other industries, it’s not exactly clear what role it will play, or what issues might accompany it. As operator capacity issues go, most of the CTOs interviewed agreed that decreasing cell size will help to increase bandwidth, should capacity issues become a problem in the future as continually connected devices receive more content that ever before.

Check out the full CED interview, which delves deeper into these topics and much more, here.