NTCA's The New Edge » Video

Dakota Central Telecommunications Selects APMAX Middleware

Steve Fravel — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:55:26 +0000

“The ability to run the middleware on the same platform that we are currently using for our voice services was an advantage both technically and economically,” commented Keith Larson, general manager of Dakota Central Telecommunications Cooperative. “The final piece that made sense for DCT was the Virtual Remote®, that lets our service center take control of the customer’s set-top-box (STB) without having to send a truck out, in some cases fifty miles or more. We believe this functionality will save us a lot of money over the long haul.”

DCT, faced with changing out its IPTV middleware platform elected to go with APMAX® from Innovative Systems to serve nearly 5000 subscribers in South Central North Dakota. Larson added, “Finding qualified people to maintain your system, especially in the head end and picking a stable middleware provider should be two of your high ranking considerations.”

In addition to IPTV, DCT provides customers in the Carrington and Jamestown areas with high-speed Internet and voice services. In business for more than 60 years, DCT customers receive their services via a state-of-the-art fiber optic network.

According to a press release regarding the Innovative Systems APMAX middleware, the IP Multimedia System (IMS) Applications server is the only platform that delivers enhanced voice services together with IPTV solutions. In addition, eLation®, a fully integrated open source software (OSS) solution that includes billing, financials, staking and mapping applications, is bundled with the communications and IPTV features.

For additional information see Innovative Systems’ website.

Cox Rolls Out a Low-Cost Package

Steve Fravel — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:56:17 +0000

As American consumers find themselves with less discretionary income and more video choices, large cable operators are seeking new ways to attract and retain subscribers. Last year, Time Warner Cable rolled out a $29.99 TV Essentials plan and Comcast soon followed with a $24.95 offering. It is worth noting that neither line-up includes ESPN, often the most expensive of the program networks.

This past week, Cox Cable followed suit and un-wrapped a new collection called TV Economy priced at $34.99. It also does not include ESPN. When comparing the low-cost packages with the typical expanded basic packages that might run in the $60 to $80 per month range, the multi-system operators may have created a small “bridge” to get them past the continued drain due to high consumer retail rates.

Looking ahead, one must wonder if consumers will be willing to forgo access to certain expensive programming in exchange for lower video bills. Time and continued package modification will tell.

Boxee Adds a Second Target Buyer

Steve Fravel — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:42:23 +0000

Though Boxee has been targeting residential customers who are “cutting the cord” to conventional cable services and satellite subscriptions, it announced last week that it would add cable operators who may be considering eliminating program costs and shifting their focus to selling just high-speed Internet access.

According to Boxee representatives, the Boxee box will drive customers toward increasing the amount of bandwidth that they buy. Boxee claims that selling a larger “pipe” benefits the operator with a larger margin because the service does not include the program costs and line-up management.

Boxee has been selling a set-top-box (STB) that retails for approximately $180. According to Boxee, its STB creates a more manageable user interface and assists in organizing the over-the-top (OTT) content available via the Internet. This function opens the door to increased numbers of program sources beyond the typical connections to Netflix, Vudu, Hulu and so forth, allowing the customer a resource that eliminates having to find additional Internet-delivered content on his own.

The primary draw back for television customers is the lack of access to local broadcast channels. Adapting to that challenge, Boxee offers a live TV adapter for an additional $49. The adapter connects an antenna, either the small antenna Boxee provides, rabbit ears or a roof-top version, to the Boxee box.

While this may be a workable and economical solution for some distributors, poor quality antenna reception in some areas and a lack of access to some live event programming available by a conventional cable or satellite subscription may be more limiting to some subscribers.

ATIS PSTN Transition Team in Place and More

Steve Fravel — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:32:25 +0000

ATIS last week announced the launch of its Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) Transition Landscape Team. According to ATIS, this unit will be making high-level assessments of issues associated with the transition from the PSTN to IP-based networks.

In addition to extensive evaluation of replacement network architecture and engineering, the group said the transition team will provide documentation detailing requirements for telecommunications services and new networks along with answering the question of whether new standards should be developed to accommodate IP telephony as the successor to PSTN. The team will look at regulatory implications concerning the proliferation of voice-over-IP (VoIP) and over-the-top (OTT) content provision along with security and implications and goals for the public.

According to the announcement, the transition team will work closely with the Technological Advisory Council Task Force and Critical Legacy Transition Working Group at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

ATIS also announced the release of a new specification that will provide identification and authentication to computers, television sets and mobile devices that connect to the Internet. ATIS advises that the new specification provides the format and syntax to create both a unique device identifier and user authentication to allow for and create secure connections to IPTV networks. According to ATIS, the new specification architecture creates a bond between the subscriber and device under unique and strong cryptography. The specification was developed by the IPTV Interoperability Forum at ATIS and uses the Extensive Authentication Protocol (EAP).

For additional information on PSTN transition team and the new specification, see the ATIS press room.

TouchTV

Steve Fravel — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:01:31 +0000

A free iPad app, called the “world’s first TV iPad app,” was released this week. Called Touchtv, the app reportedly has content from Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, ESPN, OWN and E!.

The SkyGrid design will allow viewers to add more channels and personalize their Touchtv. SkyGrid reports that LG will incorporate Touchtv into the LG smart TVs. The SkyGrid download page also includes a version for Android.

Quick Stats

Steve Fravel — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:30:33 +0000

According to comScore Video Metrix service, online video usage increased again in the final month of 2011. comScore notes that 182 million Internet users in the United States watched 43.5 billion videos. The average Internet video user devoted 23.2 hours to watching online video during December 2011.

According to the Diffusion Group: 64% of connected Smart TV owners use WiFi.

Live from CES 2012

Kevin McGuire — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:37:59 +0000

The following is a guest post from Kevin McGuire, vice president of wireless operations for Enhanced Telecommunications Corp., in Sunman, Indiana.

Another year, another CES is upon us. My sense is that it is much larger than last year’s event. The first day on the show floor I was unable to have a conversation with a vendor because so many people were there. Like in years past, I wanted to write a guest post to offer some insight into items I feel might be of importance to the rural telecom industry. Of course the show is so big that it is impossible to get to everything, so apologies if I missed something.

TVs and Video

I don’t even know where to begin here. There was so much going on in the way of TVs that I really question who’s buying all of these things. Here are a few key trends:

Attendees at CES evaluate Sharp's new 8K TV.

Ultra Definition TVs: Think HDTV was the end of resolution? Think again. Nearly every manufacturer had an Ultra Definition TV (UDTV) to showcase (although technically I think a UHDTV needs to have 8K resolution). Also known as 4K TVs , they are roughly 4,000 horizontal lines of definition, or 4x the resolution of current HDTV televisions. Sharp even had a prototype 8K TV, which is 16x the resolution of current HDTVs. I’ll tell you that they looked absolutely stunning next to a current 1080p set. I’d even go so far as to say it is nearly as impressive as going from SD to HD. Now, I’m guessing we’re still a year or two away from 4K becoming mainstream, but think of the bandwidth implications for providers.

3DTVs: I had hoped that 3D was going away, but alas, it was still in every manufacturer’s booth. There’s a movement away from active glasses, with most having both non-powered glasses and even glasses-free 3D. I’ll be honest though and admit that I couldn’t tell that the images were in 3D. Maybe it’s just my eyes, but I was not impressed. The best glasses-free TV I saw came from TCL (The Creative Life) and while it had limited content (just a few commercials), it was very obvious it was 3D, and it didn’t give me eye fatigue.

Set-Top Box Replacement: I have long suggested that I have a Sony PlayStation 3 at home, so there is no reason I should need another set-top box. I also have a GoogleTV, and would suggest the same thing. Looks like things are starting to happen to make that more of a reality. Samsung’s Smart TVs now have apps that work with DirecTV, Xfinity, Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS. While there was some effort around this last year, the DirecTV app is actually shipping with new smart sets.

Video Everywhere: Gone are the shackles of sharing video content between every device you own. Want to watch live TV on your IPad? Done. Want to stream a video you took on your phone to the TV? No problem. Want to wirelessly transfer content from your laptop to a large screen? Intel’s WiDi technology is now being built into TVs. The technology is there to do some really cool things. It’s now up to the content owners to allow it to happen.

Connected TVs: This was all the rage last year, and there’s no shortage of facebook, photo sharing or Web content on TVs. My big concern is that there doesn’t seem to be any standard (someone please correct me if I am wrong). Every manufacturer had their own way of doing/displaying things, all with their own UI and system. I can’t see app developers working with every nuance of disparate systems, and I can’t see manufacturers continuing to support and release their own middleware. There’s something to connected TVs, but I think we’re still a ways off from its potential. Regardless, I’m going to guess that about every new TV your consumers buy will be able to hook up to the Internet — so get those DSL packages updated.

Cameras and Microphones: Cameras and microphones now are being built into TVs. While video conferencing is an obvious application, some of the 3DTV manufacturers suggest that the TV will recognize where people are sitting and adjust the picture accordingly. Also, voice recognition is now on its way to TVs, allowing you to change channels with your voice. Finally, taking a note from Microsoft, some manufactures are working to enable gesture control on their sets.

Haier's transparent TV

The Future (maybe): TCL also had a holographic TV which I can’t even begin to describe. It looked like some heads-up display from a futuristic space ship or something. Maybe more on that next year. They also had a pretty cool set that displayed two programs at once. By using special glasses, each viewer could see only their program. I didn’t get a chance to ask how they handled audio. Also, Haier had a transparent TV. No kidding. I was able to look at my hand behind the display. I asked why anyone would want that and they said it was more for retail applications. Good thing I am not in retail because other than the coolness factor, I just don’t see it. Finally, there was a product called Brain Wave TV where you wore this headset type device and could change channels and control the TV. I didn’t get to try it out, but I have a hard enough keeping track of my remote, let alone this thing.

Ultrabooks

Ultrabooks on display at CES.

With all of the hype over Ultrabooks, I have to say that while much needed in the laptop space (as I type on my beefy Dell laptop), I am not overwhelmed by something that Apple did back in 2008. By definition, they are half the weight and width of existing laptops. And with most base models coming in at 4G of RAM and a 128G SSD, it’s likely more than enough power to do what you need on the road.

Don’t get me wrong — I think they are going to sell like crazy (who wants to lug around a heavy laptop if they don’t have to), but nothing earth shattering to see here, IMHO. If I were in the market for a laptop, I’d probably wait a bit for the release of Intel’s Ivy Bridge and Windows 8.

Connected Vehicles

As if smartphones aren’t putting enough bandwidth pressure on mobile networks, soon all cars will be connected as well. Why? In the labs there are a whole bunch of ideas.

With embedded chips, they can act as WiFi hotspots for passengers, provide more accurate mapping and location information, and even stream media. In the near term, it appears that the old radio will look and act more like a tablet or smartphone. More futuristic will be the sending of live traffic data between vehicles, braking information to warn drivers of potential issues ahead, and even vehicles that drive and park themselves, the latter of which can happen with the driver outside of the car.

The new Audi connected dashboard.

Heads up displays are also making a resurgence, enabling drivers to place a phone call and receive information about traffic and other items without needing to look away from the road. Couple that with advances in voice recognition and I’m anxious to see new products and services in this field.

There was no indication as to how much bandwidth the media streaming would take. One nice thing is that since it appears that your car will be a network hotspot, you will be able to share media between devices. So if you have a movie on your iPad, you can now send it to the vehicle’s screen to share with everyone. That may help cut down on some of the bandwidth, but I think it’s safe to say that we’re talking about a pretty monumental shift in mobile data usage.

Connected Home

Once again, companies were showcasing ways to unlock doors remotely, monitor security cameras from your smartphone, smart thermostats, etc. But to be honest, I felt like I walked through the exact same booths in this category as last year.

I was unable to locate a fully-integrated system that could handle everything from A-Z. There are different protocols, different implementations and I just don’t know that the average consumer is going to want to install and maintain their own system. I think what is honestly going to take the connected home to the next level is service provider support, and that starts with AT&T and Verizon.

Verizon was the only one I saw at CES, and I think they have something. Working with Motorola, there will be a gateway that bridges all of the connected devices in your home (appliances, IP cameras, TVs, lighting) and provides control of them via browsers or tablets and smartphone apps. I may be wrong, but if you offer security monitoring as a service today, this concept is something that you should really be looking into.

Health Tech

Similar to the connected home, there was a whole section of the exhibits devoted to health technology. From a service provider perspective, there is a movement to place a home health gateway in the home. This device will connect to blood pressure monitors, scales and a whole host of other devices. This information can then be sent securely to a doctor’s office where they can monitor a patient’s progress. I’m unclear how this will all shake out, but again we’re talking more bandwidth, and perhaps a reason for an older demographic to get broadband. I wonder if broadband will be covered by health insurance?

So that about wraps it up. If you were there, I’d be interested in your comments.

CES: Cisco Demos Cloud Solution for Legacy STBs

Steve Fravel — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:40:24 +0000

Cisco has added to its cloud-based interactive TV software. Called Videoscape, the suite of software allows set-top-boxes to connect to the cloud to deploy user interfaces and interactive program guides along with video on demand (VOD) services. MPEG 2 set-top-boxes gain new life with the inclusion of a new generation of interactive features.

The addition of ActiveVideo Network’s CloudTV to Videoscape will afford service providers the ability to add new features to legacy set-top-boxes.

According to Jeff Miller, president and CEO of ActiveVideo, “ActiveVideo’s CloudTV solution cuts through the device chaos created by diverse set-top-box models, and helps VideoScape become widely and quickly deployed.”

ActiveVideo demonstrated the CloudTV H5 platform that supports HTML5 formatted applications at CES. Boosting the demonstration with the iPhone Siri voice recognition feature allowed Cisco the opportunity to demonstrate voice recognition and voice-activated command of the viewing experience.

Chuck Stucki, vice president and general manager of IP video systems at Cisco, said that “adding the ActiveVideo CloudTV rather than developing it at Cisco allowed Cisco to focus on delivering next-generation user experiences to new IP-based devices.”

For more, see this release.

CES: New “Better” TV Sets?

Steve Fravel — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:54:55 +0000

The Leichtman Research Group recently released some interesting data concerning television set ownership in the United States. There is an HDTV-capable TV set in 69% of U.S. households. Further, 48% of U.S. households have more than one HDTV, and one-third have more than two HDTVs. On the analog side, 45% of TV sets in households are not HDTV-capable, and nearly 60% of all TV sets in the United States are non-HDTV.

What all of this really means is that TV is an important fixture in U.S. households. There is ample market to whom manufacturers can sell more HDTVs.

From all reports, there were a lot of TVs on display at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Like all things television, being “better” is subjective. Will the advances shown this year turn into the consumer trends that the manufacturers predict?

Approximately two years ago, the manufacturers were touting 3D as the “must-have” technology moving forward in home entertainment. Unfortunately, there still aren’t very many sources for 3D content available. This year Toshiba demonstrated a TV that does not require the glasses to see the 3D effects.

According to sales figures, only 3% of the viewers in the U.S. own a 3D television. At CES there were 3D monitors on display which were bigger, thinner and more expensive than conventional view screens. According to a poll taken by Parks & Associates, nearly half of those who indicated a willingness to buy a new television in 2012 prefer an Internet-connected set over a 3D TV.

Showing at a few of the vendors booths in Las Vegas were “next generation” 4K screens. Here again, there isn’t much content to speak of, but the pictures look nice. We are told they are brighter and that four times the resolution makes a great picture. Even with features like automatic up-converting of current HD video, the price tag on the 4K sets will be a problem for most people.

There are LCDs and LEDs and plasma screens and all of them have better, newer and different features. Then there is OLED (organic light emitting diode). Sony had one a few years back. It was an 11-inch screen and very expensive, but it had a great picture. Sony has dropped out of the OLED business and now offers “crystal” LED screens. LG, Samsung, Toshiba manufacture OLED in 50-inch screens. Those who have seen the OLED and compared it to the Sony “crystal” set give the edge to the OLED.

I keep coming back to the idea that people want their television connected to the Internet. Having surveyed the content that is available, I know there is more than Hulu, Netflix and You Tube available “over-the-top (OTT).” With Samsung joining the Google TV crowd and Roku coming up with smaller and smaller devices to direct OTT content to the set, the question I have is still, ” Is OTT in addition to pay-TV – or is it eventually instead of pay-TV?’

Time and technical advances in the electronic equipment we buy will tell.

New 5G WiFi Chips

Steve Fravel — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:55:52 +0000

Broadcom is now offering a new line of 5G WiFi computer chips for use in consumer electronics. The primary advantage will be the ability to deliver wireless video and data at speeds that will be three times faster than Internet connections sent through the current generation of WiFi chips.

Based on IEEE 802.11ac, a standard which is still under development, Broadcom’s 5G WiFi is a major evolutionary step from existing 802.11a/b/g/n networks. Consumers will notice an immediate quickness from use of the 802.11ac standard chips which may be used in routers and set-top-boxes.

The Wi-Fi Alliance does not expect to begin certifying products based upon this new standard before the fourth quarter of 2012. However, devices might start hitting stores by mid-year, which presumably would be upgradable to the final standard.