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WHITE PAPER

Service Providers - Over the Top is good for

you

Nov 2009

SolanoTech Ltd

Midlands Innovation & Research Centre

Athlone Institute of Technology

Athlone, Co. Westmeath, IrelandPhone: +353-90-6635987

Email: [email protected]

www.solanotech.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.solanotech.com/





© Sola noTec h 2009

This do cu ment is the prop rieta ry prope rty of Solano Tec h Ltd

Cop ying or otherwise distributing the information c ontained herein is a breac h of co nfidentiality agreement.

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SERVICE PROVIDERS - OVER THE TOP IS GOOD FOR YOU

Nothing strikes more fear into the hearts of Service Providers than the words ‘Over

the Top’ and the dull prospect of being reduced to the role of mere bitpipe providers.

IMS may represent the one last chance for Service Providers’ to gain control of

what’s going through their network but realistically the OTT force is akin to a tsunami

and cannot be resisted.

In these circumstances, it is always better to embrace than resist and we believe that

this is what Service Providers’ must do and adopt a “bring it on” attitude to OTT

features. Over the Top is good for you and bit pipe provision is even better. Create the

need and dependency for bandwidth hungry services and charge for quality of service

measured by bandwidth, contention and reliability. The more bandwidth you want the

more you pay.

Voice, video, music, gaming, messaging, social networking, media downloading andthe fusion of all these things is creating an ever increasing demand for bandwidth.

Such is the richness of experience and the benefits offered, services unheard of 5

years ago are now must haves and a dependency on reliable and really broad

bandwidth to the home to consume these services has been created. And it is only just

beginning.

The decentralisation of the home into a mini multimedia network with many network

devices and individual media consumption has further upped the ante on bandwidth

demand.

It is TV/Video over the internet that is creating the real game changing effect indemand for bandwidth. The anytime, anywhere, any device revolution for TV/Video

consumption is underway and there is no going back. Linear scheduled TV is

becoming an anachronism and High Definition is doing to Standard Definition what

Colour did to Black & White in a different generation.

IPTV has emerged as a very credible alternative to Satellite, Cable and DTT for Pay

TV services. Quality, channel choice, interactivity and bundled packaging will see

IPTV grab 15 % of the Global Pay TV market from its current 3% within the next 4

years. That’s the managed side of Internet TV and is in the control of Service

Providers today. Over the Top TV in all its forms has also entered the mainstream,

mainly consumed for now at the Desk Top.

Hulu, Joost, wwiTV to name but three present a consolidated set of thousands of TV

channels over the web. Catch up TV as evidenced by BBC’s iPlayer service has been

a phenomenal success and all major TV Networks have rushed to follow and have

implemented their own catch up TV services over the net. YouTube is another variant

of the Internet TV phenomenon and possibly the most recognised. Very local

Community TV has become a reality and OTT TV is being used to bring very specific

TV content to ex-pat and ethnic communities worldwide.

Right now OTT TV is primarily a two screen play for PC/Laptop and wireless

handheld devices. The next evolution is back to TV itself and we see that OTT TV

will be an integral part of the ‘leanback’ TV experience.






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The streaming rates for OTT TV are increasing all the time and play out on standard

large screen TV’s is acceptable today. This will get better with increased streaming

rates and improved compression technology. On the CPE side, hybrid Set Top Boxes

combining Cable/Satellite/IPTV with internet connectivity are proliferating.

Home control servers such as Nero are providing content streaming solutions in the

home based on the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standard. DLNA is a

standard which allows consumer entertainment devices within the home to share

content. Gaming devices such as Xbox, PS3 all include DLNA based players and are

used to play out TV/Video content to TV screens.

The TV screen will increasingly become a web like portal for accessing

TV/Video/Audio content and enabling the blending of context sensitive services.

When you start to combine the power of social network features with the flexibility of

the TV viewing experience that is now available, a truly irresistible and compellingexperience has been created for the majority of consumers.

This brings us back to where we started and our conclusion that consumers will

demand more and better quality bandwidth from Service Providers driven mainly by

TV and Video services. This demand will happen through the social network effect as

people discover what’s possible but Service Providers have a major role in stimulating

the demand for innovative OTT services. As multi-room, high definition and the

DLNA connected home become standard, speeds in excess of 15 Mb will become the

minimum expected norm and 100 Mb to the home will not be seen as excessive in the

very near future.

We believe that consumers will pay a premium for scaled bandwidth and QoS to

access these services. It is up to Service Providers to be open in how they stimulate

demand for new services, expand the capacity of their access and backbone networks

and create attractive pricing plans for increasing bandwidth access.






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ABBREVIATIONS

CPE Customer Premise Equipment

DLNA Digital Living Network Alliance

DTT Digital Terrestrial TV

IP Internet ProtocolIPTV Internet Protocol Television

OTT Over-the-Top

QoS Quality-of-Service

Disclaimer

The information conta ined in this publica tion is derived from c arefully selec ted pub lic sources

we b elieve a re reasona ble. We d o not g uarantee its ac c urac y or c omp leteness and nothing in

this do c ument shall be c onstrued to b e a rep resenta tion of such a gua rante e. The o pinions

presented are subjec t to c hang e w ithout notice . SolanoTec h a c c ep ts no respo nsibility for anyliability arising from use of this document of its contents. Nothing in this note constitutes or

should b e ta ken to c onstitute investment ad vice.

Solano Tec h is a softw are c om pany providing midd lewa re solutions for the ne two rked

TV ind ustry. We spec ialise in innova tive softwa re solutions which b lend the p ow er of

the internet w ith IPTV services. We c an b e c onta c ted at [email protected] or please

see our we bsite a t www.solanotech.com






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