Entone Secures NECA Distribution Deal

Jesse Ward — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:03:01 +0000

Entone Inc., a provider of Hybrid TV and Connected Home STB solutions, announced June 22 that it has secured a deal with the National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA) to make its FusionTV solution available to the organization’s membership.

NECA, which represents more than 1,000 rural telcos in the United States, helps its members deliver high-speed, multi-use broadband services. The organization says that the FusionTV platform will enable its member companies and their broadband affiliates to offer video on demand (VoD) and other over-the-top (OTT) services on the TV.

“In today’s competitive landscape, our members are seeking more options to assemble innovative solutions to help them stimulate broadband take rates and provide value added services to existing broadband subscribers,” said Sal Talluto, NECA’s director of technology planning and implementation. “With Entone’s FusionTV, NECA’s members are able to deploy a high quality on-demand video service without the cost of deploying a full-scale IPTV system.”

According to Entone, the OTT edition of FusionTV that will be available to NECA members will allow them to offer their subscribers access to HD content from the Walmart-owned Vudu broadband VoD service, and a growing array of cloud-based services such as music streaming from Pandora, photo sharing from Flickr and Picasa, and social media from Facebook and Twitter.

“There are many compelling Web media services available to consumers today. It is paramount that operators embrace these services to remain competitive,” said Ameer Karim, vice president of Hybrid TV solutions at Entone. “With FusionTV, NECA members can now bundle a rich array of media services with their broadband Internet subscriptions. This is a great way to embrace OTT services while maintaining the primary relationship with the customer.”

For more, see this release.

WalMart Agrees to Buy Movie Service Vudu

Kevin McGuire — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:42:05 +0000

According to the New York Times, Walmart has agreed to buy movie service Vudu. Vudu is a 3 year old start up founded by industry veterans from companies like TiVo, WebTV, and OpenTV, to name a few. It had deals with major studios bringing the ability to purchase or rent over 5,000 titles through either a stand alone box, or recently embedded into a variety of consumer devices like TVs and DVD players.

While details of the transaction are not known, one can be safe to assume that Wal-Mart is doing it to protect/diversify their DVD sales business. One site that I came across suggested that Walmart made up nearly 40% of the total $17B DVD market back in 2006 (which I believe was before iTunes sold movies).

Will they be successful? Time will tell. With services like Netflix, Blockbuster, and Boxee having a head start, Walmart may have a difficult time differentiating itself in an increasingly crowded market. I’d bet they will adopt one of their time tested strategies to try to compete: low, low prices.

NTCA's The New Edge » Vudu

Entone Secures NECA Distribution Deal

WalMart Agrees to Buy Movie Service Vudu