Mobile Video, OTT and payTV

NBCUniversal has launched a subscription video-on-demand service direct to consumers in the UK. 

NBCUniversal is offering its movies subscription services PictureBox Films direct to consumers in the UK and Ireland for the first time for £4.99 (€5.86) a month.

The move follows a redesign and rebranding of the service. Users will be able to access 60 hand-picked films, at any time, through their desktop computer, Samsung Smart TV or mobile devices such as iPads, iPhones and Android phones.

Movies on the site, which launches today, include The Eagle, The American,Bridget Jones’ Diary, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Jarhead and The Bourne Identity.

PictureBox originally launched in 2006 as a digital TV SVOD service and is available via Virgin Media, TalkTalk, BT Vision and Top Up TV. The service is also available in Poland, Russia, Latin America, Brazil and Singapore via local platform providers.

This is the age of personalization. Want your alma mater on your credit card? Or a picture of your dog? Done. A radio feed that plays only what you want to hear? Golf clubs with your name engraved on the club head? Sure.

This summer, Netflix will introduce individual user profiles for family accounts, putting an end to one of the lesser joys of sharing a Netflix log-in: The new content you discover after your spouse/significant other or children have had sole access to the TV while you were away on business.

The profiles will mean that your long-developed content recommendations list based on weeks of watching Top Gear, The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy and Rescue Me, will no longer suddenly be replaced with recommendations ”just for you” based on a new history of binge watching Gossip Girl, Project Runway, Big Love and Felicity.

Todd Yellin, Netflix’s VP of Product Innovation, said the company, which already has a pretty well-developed recommendation engine, will offer profiles as an user option (lets face it, sharing can create a pretty eclectic assortment of copy, and that’s NOT necessarily a bad thing). If a user chooses to participate, they’ll be able to create profiles (or multiple profiles) for each family member. Yahoo reports the service will allow five or six profiles to be created and will launch in August.

The company was showing off the feature at the E3 gaming conference in Los Angeles. Netflix originally demonstrated the profiles feature at CES in January, saying the ability to create different user recommendations had been identified by users as a “must-have.”

The profiles can be set up on any device or on the Netflix site.

Content recommendation remains a big hurdle for online video aggregators, as well as pay-TV operators and content owners.

While the new profiles from Netflix will generate a lot of play, the company is just one of many trying to discover new ways to deliver targeted content to users.

Companies like Jinni, Think Analytics and a dozen others have been developing products that use meta-data, algorithms, and observations of user viewing to create new ways to increase engagement time—especially with over-the-top video.

Nielsen this week released a report that said Americans watch an average of more than 140 hours a month of TV, and said the amount of time watching TV on the Internet had grown more than 50% between 1Q2012 and 1Q2013. Mobile viewing, too, has seen dramatic increases.

With all of those options, it’s becoming increasingly important for service providers especially to offer subscribers an easier way to find content… or risk losing them to the vagaries of grazing, the “new” channel surfing.

Cisco 

Cisco VNI 2013 mobile video growth

As Cisco released the latest iteration of its Visual Networking Index, its CEO, John Chambers predicted at "All things D" D11conference that improvements in mobile networks architecture and topology will progressively reduce costs and that mobile data will become free...
Not less expensive, inexpensive or cheap... free.
Wow, I am not sure how that happens. With the industry spending $300+ billions per year to increase networks capacity, and signs that LTE might need an LTE Advanced injection sooner than anticipated, the comment seems curious.
Cisco wants, like most of the enterprise vendors in the market to make wireless networks more IT than Telco. That means less differentiated boxes, more i/o, more centralized control, no proprietary interfaces, hardware, protocols. 
This is a good aim, but the reason why the Telco market has been historically highly proprietary has as much to do with its idiosyncrasies and politics (GSM, TDMA, CDMA, WIMAX, WCDMA, LTE FDD and TDD...IMS) than vendors. "Standards" have emerged by necessity but have always been the smallest common denominator for networks and functions to behave, leaving wide margin for vendor differentiation and proprietary "enhancements". That needs to be resolved first before you can see costs come down. At last, costs coming down do not necessarily equate prices going down... unless content starts to subsidize bandwidth like YouTube / Netflix with internet backbone. Talking about Google/YouTube....

Google

This week as well, Google made the headlines, speaking to the Wall Street Journal. The company was quoted having plans to deploy and operate wireless networks in Sub Saharan Africa and South East Asia. Orange CEO was boasting having made Google pay for traffic in Africa in February, that was a short victory.
After subsidizing internet infrastructure for YouTube traffic, implementing large scale wifi and fiber networks, Google is to build and operate wireless networks.The idea is that Google would build these networks to provide wireless broadband services that are proving to be great enhancements in people's quality of life, communication and prosperity, such as watching cats fall off TV sets on YouTube or playing massive multiplayer online games on Facebook.
More seriously, the implications of this move are tremendous. Google could have a completely integrated vertical content delivery form creation, to aggregation, to delivery and display. What will Google want in exchange for these investments? Maybe nothing, the CEO was quoted several times having Google working on wide ranging non-profit goals....
But then again, indirectly, maybe you will need an Android device to access these networks, or maybe Google talk, chat... will be free on these networks, but you will have top pay to use other apps or services...
Certainly, connecting the next billion subscribers to wireless broadband for free is an inspiring goal. The skeptics and cynics will see here another way to dominate a market by vertical integration.

Jury is out, but if you are a wireless network operator in these regions, you better start thinking about what that could mean to your business.

Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers predicted that the cost of transporting mobile data will follow a path similar to mobile voice: As networks become more efficient, the cost of transmitting mobile data will fall.

"Price points are going to come down rapidly," Chambers said during an interview at AllThingsD's D11 conference, according to AllThingsD. "Transport will become free. … Architectures will change. With intelligence throughout the network, the network will become the platform of the future."

Chambers was responding to a question about whether cellular data networks will be able to handle the rising data demands of an increasingly mobile and smartphone-toting population. Chambers said improvements in the designs of wireless networks will allow operators to slowly bring down the cost of mobile data services, as they have been able to do with voice calling.

Not surprisingly, Cisco is working to sell a range of products to mobile operators that the vendor believes will help reduce the cost of launching and maintaining a network. The actions stem partly from Cisco's acquisition of the likes of Intucell, BroadHop, ThinkSmart and Meraki. Cisco is working to cobble those companies together with its own products in a bid to challenge mobile equipment market leaders like Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU).

For example, during his D11 appearance, Chambers discussed Cisco's "service provider Wi-Fi" products that he said use unlicensed spectrum to offload data. Wi-Fi, Chambers predicted, will eventually carry 80 to 90 percent of the growth of cellular networks.

Chambers' comments come on the heels of Cisco's release of its new Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast for 2012 to 2017. Cisco's VNI is the vendor's widely cited traffic monitoring report, and in the company's newest forecast Cisco predicts global Internet protocol (IP) traffic will grow three-fold between 2012 and 2017, to an annual run rate of 1.4 zettabytes--more than a trillion gigabytes per year--by 2017.

In its new VNI forecast, Cisco said that in 2012 around 26 percent of Internet traffic originated with non-PC devices, but by 2017 the non-PC share of Internet traffic will grow to 49 percent. During that period, smartphone traffic will grow by 79 percent, and tablet traffic will grow by 104 percent.

Finally, Cisco said that, globally, there were 3.8 billion mobile consumers in 2012, a number that will grow by 4.1 percent to 4.6 billion by 2017.

Openwave Mobility Launches Cloud-Based Mobile Data Analytics SolutionSolution works in virtualized environments and provides correlated dashboards of application and network information resulting in actionable intelligence for operators to understand user behavior and drive new monetization models 

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. & LAS VEGAS, May 21, 2013 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Openwave Mobility, a software innovator enabling operators to manage and monetize growth in mobile video and web traffic, today announced the latest version of Mobile Analytics. This solution combines mission critical mobile data analysis functionality, greater ease-of-use and the option of hosting it in the cloud (Cloud Edition) or in-network (Business Edition). The solution can also be deployed in a virtualized environment with dynamic scaling that closely aligns with the industry initiative for network function virtualization (NFV).

Mobile Analytics uses NFV combined with the flexibility in software defined networking (SDN) flow control to dynamically drive focused user engagement in the data path to develop targeted monetization opportunities.

The Openwave Mobility Mobile Analytics solution is key for the business of mobile data. It enables mobile operators to develop key business and revenue goals based on actionable insights gathered in near real-time through a new and powerful subscriber segmentation capability that includes correlated dashboards and reporting. Understanding data utilization, application patterns, device/application behaviors and content categorization provides mobile operators with a deep understanding of end-user behavior, which is fundamental to developing mobile broadband business models in elastic deployment modes. Mobile Analytics' dynamic segmentation integrates with the SDN controller to enable personalized service chaining of flows in an SDN architecture.

The solution is designed to enable mobile operators to gather data from multiple functions across the network. The effective implementation provides a cost of ownership model that is at least 10x better than other competing solutions. The elastic scaling and dynamic reporting provides the flexibility to meet business needs more cost effectively and new interfaces provide a standardized mechanism for integrating Mobile Analytics into existing data warehouses.

When combining Mobile Analytics with Openwave Mobility's Promotion and Pricing Innovation (PPI) solution, operators can engage more deeply with subscribers by introducing new and highly intuitive targeted promotions in real-time. This combined solution enables mobile operators to shift from traditional tiered volume-based pricing models to more intuitive service-based pricing models.

"The diversity of devices and applications are generating a wealth of valuable insight about how users are consuming content when mobile. Mobile Analytics moves beyond looking at this as a capacity issue, but focuses on user engagement and monetization," said Fergus Wills, Director of Product Management, Openwave Mobility. "The enhanced Mobile Analytics solution allows mobile operators to understand the user's relationship with the network and the content they consume while providing new opportunities to re-define the user to mobile operator relationship."

Key features of the new Mobile Analytics (Cloud Edition) and (Business Edition) solution include:

-- Virtualized deployment model, for dynamic instantiation.

-- Dynamic segmentation & real time report generation- Analyze and define a correlated view of data from different sources to provide key tracking of business segments.

-- Integrated, interactive dashboards - Provides a holistic view of users across multiple dimensions (device, application, network, time, category, class, vendor).

-- Trending - automatic tracking of key trends in each data vector over time.

-- Correlation of key data points - network session data combined with application / service access to provide key aggregated metrics of user consumption including when, where and for how long.

-- Actionable intelligence - key ability to export and action dynamic segments to create new user engagement and monetization options.

-- Standard interfaces to integrate with existing data warehouse, user repositories and restful API.

The latest version of Mobile Analytics (Cloud Edition) and (Business Edition) is available immediately.

Visit www.owmobility.com or contact sales@owmobility.com for more information.

Opera Software has taken its latest step into developing new products for smart TVs by launching AdMarvel for Connected TVs.

AdMarvel for Connected TVs is designed to provide publishers and advertisers with an ad-serving platform combined with ad exchange, ad serving and ad management functionality on connected TVs.

The launch of the new platform is part of the Opera’s strategy of extending MediaWorks, its mobile ad platform, into the connected TV world

Early partners working with the AdMarvel for Connected TV platform to extend video advertising across the AdMarvel publisher base into connected TVs include video ad networks such as Brightroll, TubeMogul, Videology, iVdopia, SpotXchange, as well as Opera Mediaworks’ Mobile Theory premium ad network.

In addition to AdMarvel, Opera MediaWorks, which was launched in February, includes US mobile ad network Mobile Theory and UK premium ad network 4th Screen Advertising.

“All of these [units] a are coming together to create the world’s leading rich media ad platform,” Opera’s senior vice-president for TV and devices, Aneesh Rajaram, told DTVE. Rajaram said Opera’s HTML5 engine could help create pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll video advertising across platforms.

More than 75% of MPEG-DASH deployments are due to take place either the second half of 2013 and the first half of 2014, according to a new study by the DASH Industry Forum. 

Based on a survey of major European broadcasters, the forum found that much of this adoption is expected to take place under the HbbTV 1.5 standard, with the majority of deployments due to take place in the second half of this year.

The biggest challenge noted was the availability of DASH clients – which are expected to be largely available in the second half of 2013 – while the availability of content packaging tools was the second biggest concern.

Live and on-demand services will be offered by almost all European broadcasters using the standard, while time-shifted content delivery will be deployed by half of them, according to the survey.

DASH allows delivery of both non-protected content and content encrypted with multiple concurrent DRM schemes. The polled broadcasters indicated that while some content will be delivered without DRM, Playready and Marlin were the two DRM solutions that they were considering most, followed by Widevine and Verimatrix.

  

YouTube is taking on linear TV by opening up live streaming options for the first time to any channel that has more than 1,000 subscribers.

The major expansion follows the introduction of live streaming functionality on the site in 2011, which has to now only been available to selected partners to air tentpole events such as the Coachella music festival coverage, and Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking skydive.

YouTube said that any channel with enough subscribers that are in “good standing” – ie follow the YouTube community guidelines – can now apply for live streaming with the functionality to roll out to these channels in the coming weeks.

The features offered by the new streaming options include real-time transcoding in the cloud, with YouTube to make streams instantly available in all resolutions and device formats. Multiple camera angles, closed captions, ad inserts can also be used.

The news, which coincides with Google’s I/O developers conference in San Francisco, follows the launch last week of a subscription channels pilot for its site, with 53 initial participant networks kicking-off the scheme.

The new pay channels carry subscription fees starting at US$0.99 (€0.77) per-month and all have a 14-day free-trial, with many also carrying discounted yearly rates

Disney/ ABC Television Group is set to launch a new authenticated streaming service, offering full live online access to ABC shows and local market programming for the first time. 

Watch ABC is due to launch in New York City and Philadelphia this week before rolling out to all ABC-owned station markets by the start of the 2013 fall broadcast season.

As well as live shows, the service will also include on-demand access to content available through the existing ABC Player. Users will be able to view Watch ABC online and via apps for iOS and Kindle Fire. It will launch on Samsung Galaxy devices in the summer.

Disney/ABC Television Group has Watch ABC agreements in place with Multichannel Video Program Distributors (MVPDs), including Comcast, Cablevision, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Midcontinent Communications and AT&T U-verse.

The network has reached an agreement with Hearst Television to launch the WATCH ABC service in their 13 ABC station markets, which include Boston, Pittsburgh, Kansas City.

This announcement represents a defining moment in technology and distribution, as well as for our advertising and affiliate partners, as we ensure that our high-quality content is available to viewers on a variety of devices,” claimed Anne Sweeney, co-chair, Disney Media Networks, and president, Disney/ABC Television Group.

The move follows recent legal wrangling between ABC and US internet TV startup Aereo. ABC was one of a number of broadcasters to file lawsuits against the service last year, claiming that by retransmitting television stations over the web without licensing the content from content owners, Aereo was infringing their copyright.

Pay TV penetration has reached saturation point in the US and Canada and pay TV revenues will fall by over US$5 billion (€3.8 billion) in North America between 2012 and 2018, according to new research.

Digital TV Research’s North America report, published today, says that pay TV revenues in the region peaked in 2012 at US$89 billion. The 2013 will be slightly below that but the total will continue to fall between now and 2018 when cumulative pay TV revenues will be US$83.7 billion.

Digital TV Research also forecasts that satellite will overtake cable as the dominant pay TV platform in 2017.

Report author Simon Murray noted that pricing will become the key battleground as pay TV operators battle for new subs. He said: “TV ARPU is being forced down as cable operators and telcos convert their subscribers to dual-play or triple-play bundles, though blended [overall] ARPU is rising. But it won’t end there. As the analog cable networks switch off, operators across all of the digital platforms will try to outdo each other on promotions, with pricing becoming a more and more important tool.”

However, the growth in the number of TV homes in North America means that while penetration remains flat there will actually be more pay TV subscribers across the measurement period. The total will climb by 7.5 million between 2012 and 2018 reaching 119.5 million by that point. There will be an uptick of 1.5 billion in 2013 alone, according to Digital TV Research.

The report does not factor in subscribers to Netflix and other streaming and over the top services.

Amazon-owned UK OTT subscription video-on-demand service Lovefilm has launched a new streaming app for internet connected devices. The app will initially be launched on the Sony PlayStation 3 games console in the UK and Germany, and will then be rolled out to all Lovefilm Instant-enabled platforms.

According to Lovefilm new features include an improved search functionality and recommendation engine, and a new user interface.

Lovefilm has also added a Watchlist feature, allowing members to create an unlimited streaming playlist that can be accessed at any time. A new display on users’ home pages keeps track of what content they are currently viewing and the last location reached in that video to make it easier to resume viewing from the same place via any Lovefilm-enabled device.

The PlayStation 3 update also enables Lovefilm subscribers to watch HD content via the games console for the first time.

“Lovefilm has been a fantastic part of the services offering on PlayStation 3 since 2010. Now with a brand new improved app coming first to PlayStation 3 plus the addition of HD content, this is a huge enhancement to the PlayStation entertainment portfolio and even more relevant for our millions of UK customers,” said Fergal Gara, vice-president and managing director for Sony Computer Entertainment UK and Ireland.

  

Opera Software ASA (OPERA), the Norwegian maker of Internet browsers, rose the most in almost seven months as a deal to supply its Skyfire software to an unidentified mobile operator signals that its strategy is working.

Shares in the Oslo-based company rose as much as 6.4 percent, the biggest intraday increase since Nov. 20, and were up 4.3 percent at 43.9 kroner as of 3:13 p.m. in the Norwegian capital. About 437,000 shares have traded so far today, more than 60 percent above the three-month daily average.

“Operators are starting to use cloud solution technology, instead of just hardware,” Andre Holo Adolfsen, an analyst at Nordea Securities, said by telephone from Oslo. This is proof that the concept of Skyfire works and that operators are willing to install the software and technology in their networks, he said.

Opera, which competes with Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) browsers, is seeking to boost sales by targeting the growing mobile-phone data market for its cross-platform Internet browser. It plans to increase revenue this year by as much as 37 percent from $216 million last year.

Opera signed a three-year global frame agreement with an unidentified “major international mobile operator” to supply Skyfire’s Rocket Optimizer cloud technology across the operator’s network, the company said in a statement.

“Skyfire was a smart and cheap acquisition,” said Holo Adolfsen, who recommends that clients buy the stock. “The upside is tremendous.”

Analyst Craig Moffett, who was formerly the keystone of Sanford Bernstein’s MSO research business before rolling out his own startup in the form of Moffett Research in May, has been around the cable industry a long time and has—for the most part—been pretty bullish on the industry.

While he hasn’t shouted “Away all boats!” just yet, Moffett has been sounding some cautionary notes about the segment recently.

Moffett Monday rolled out a mammoth report about the cable and satellite business and acknowledged that the cord-cutting phenomenon, while still in its nascent stage, could be problematic for the industry.

“Pay TV is unmistakably declining and the rate of penetration decline is accelerating,” he wrote. “The very fact that there have recently been more new households being minted each year than there have been new pay-TV households is proof positive that cord cutting is real.”

That’s a pretty big change of course from an analyst who has, as recently as 2012, contended that cord cutting was almost solely the offshoot of a struggling economy that would disappear when the economy rebounded.

Back in September 2011, Moffett warned the industry that it was pricing itself out of the market, noting that the industry has raised prices 29 percent since 2006. That price inflation could result in massive defections of pay-TV subscribers who are “faced with the choice of pay TV” or paying their basic bills.

Well, an economic rebound has not created a subscriber upsurge. In fact, this year was the first time the industry saw a net decline in subscribers over a four-quarter period.

Moffett now is forecasting cable subscriber growth will decline from its current 87.9% penetration rate to closer to 82% by 2020. The dip is a combination of both sticker shock among lower income households and the advances made by OTT alternatives like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon and others.

Those loses are going to impact MSO stocks, too, he said, despite a bullish couple of years already in the books.

“The cable bull case is now consensus, and we no longer see material upside to intrinsic value for the sector,” Moffett wrote.

Moffett said growth likely would continue, but not to the 40% tune the industry had danced to in recent years. In fact, he rated only Charter (CHTR) as a “buy.”

Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), Dish Network (DISH) and DirecTV (DTV) all rated “neutral,” with Cablevision (CVC) drawing the dreaded “sell” rating.

Intel is reportedly offering a premium of up to 75% over standard cable rates to secure content for its planned pay TV service, but has yet to close a deal with any major content provider.

According to a Reuters report, citing unnamed sources familiar with the talks, Intel is offering considerably more than standard US cable rates to secure programming and has reached agreement over some aspects of how content would be distributed on its service with CBS, News Corp and Viacom.

The chipset giant is also in talks with Comcast-owned NBC Universal, but at a less advanced stage, according to Reuters.

According to the sources, Intel has upped its offer significantly since negotiations began and is offering a premium of between 50-75%. With its service yet to launch, Intel would expect to pay a premium per-subscriber rate to secure deals with the studios.

Intel has said it plans to provide a more flexible way of consuming content via its service. Head of media Erik Huggers told an AllThingsDigital event in February that he was confident the company would be in a position to launch a service this year.

Ericsson has tipped video traffic in mobile networks to grow by around 60% annually through to 2018.

According to Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report, video will account for around half of all global mobile data traffic by 2018, driven by better network speeds – with 60% of the world’s population due to by covered by LTE in 2018.

Data traffic volumes doubled between Q1 2012 and Q1 2013, and are expected to grow 12-fold by 2018, Ericsson said, claiming that video already makes up the largest segment of data traffic in networks. Video consumption is on average 2.6GB per subscription per month in some networks, the firm said.

“Video streaming services in some markets have shown a very strong uptake: people use services such as Netflix, HBO and Vimeo on all types of devices. As video conferencing evolves beyond fixed facilities in meeting rooms to being used on mobile devices, it will also drive video traffic growth in mobile networks,” the report said.

However, though video is popular, consumers spend more time on social networking at an average of up to 85 minutes per day in some networks, Ericsson said.

“Accessing the internet through dedicated apps such as social networks and picture messaging will drive mobile traffic development. Mobile data traffic is expected to grow with a CAGR of around 50 percent (2012-2018), driven mainly by video. This will result in growth of around 12 times by the end of 2018,” according to the research.

Smartphones accounted for around half of all mobile-phone sales in Q1 2013, compared with roughly 40% for the whole of 2012. The number of total mobile subscriptions grew by 8% globally year-on-year by Q1 2013.

Media Excel has been chosen by QuickPlay Mediaas a video transcoding solution partner for its global multiscreen services. Hundreds of channels will be transcoded on the HERO 5000 series platform for the first phase of their partnership. Using Media Excel solutions, QuickPlay will provide turnkey MPEG-DASH and HEVC-centric solutions to their customers. This creates additional value and shortens time to market for multiscreen, OTT, and other IP-connected video services.
 
QuickPlay Media is the leading provider of multiscreen managed services for VoD, Live TV, and TV Everywhere to IP-connected devices, having successfully launched multiscreen video services for the world’s foremost communications and media companies. QuickPlay's OpenVideo™ managed service platform ingests content from more than 4,000 providers and optimizes content for more than 400 device types, ensuring that it displays in the highest quality and meets digital rights management and security requirements.
 
"As a managed service provider, QuickPlay works with a number of market leading technologies in order to deliver the best end-to-end solution for our clients," said Wayne Purboo, CEO of QuickPlay Media. "We selected Media Excel for its exceptional video quality, its ease of deployment, and extensive feature set, combined with their partnership approach."
 
QuickPlay Media will leverage Media Excel’s HERO Management System (HMS) in conjunction with its OpenVideo Media Processor, for complete visibility and control over multiscreen transcoding services to deliver 24/7 availability and superior QoS. HMS is fully customizable and can simultaneously accommodate different failover policies allowing operators, systems integrators, and content owners to deploy services with minimum operational cost.
 
"Media Excel delivers the best video quality in the industry to satisfy viewers worldwide," said John Hotchkiss, COO at Media Excel. "It's an honor to partner with QuickPlay Media as they extend their business to serve more customers in global markets."
 
Media Excel HERO video transcoding delivers a number of unique advantages for multiscreen TV, Internet TV, web TV, and mobile TV providers, including multiscreen encoding of live and VoD events, datacenter and cloud solutions, proven uptime, and native MPEG-DASH support. Media Excel solutions are designed for broadcasters, telecoms, and content aggregators with low-latency point-to-point distribution over IP and ASI networks, and for adaptive delivery of HLS, Smooth, Flash, and MPEG-DASH to consumer devices.
 
Media Excel is exhibiting at BroadcastAsia2013 in Singapore from June 18-21, in the Marina Bay Sands, Level 5, Stand 5K2-01. QuickPlay Media can be found at Stand 5H1-01.

Recent discussions with a number of my clients have brought to light a fundamental misconception. Mobile video is not data. It is not a different use case of data or a particular form of data, it is just a different service. The sooner network operators will understand that they cannot count, measure, control video the same way as browsing data, the sooner they will have a chance to integrate the value chain of delivering video.

Deep packet inspection engines count bytes, categorize traffic per protocol, bearer, URL, throttle and prioritize data flow based on rules that are video-myopic. Their concern is of Quality of Service (QoS) not Quality of Experience (QoE). Policy and charging engines decide meter and limit traffic in real-time based on the incomplete picture painted by DPIs and other network elements.

Not understanding whether traffic is video (or assuming it is video just based on the URL) can prove itself catastrophic for the user experience and their bill. How can traffic management engine instantiate video charging and prioritization rules if they cannot differentiate between download, progressive download, adaptive bit rate? How can they decide what is the appropriate bandwidth for a service if they do not understand what is the encoding of the video, what are the available bit rates, if it is HD or SD, what is the user expectation?

Content providers naturally push a content of the highest quality that the network can afford, smartphone and tablets try and grab as much network capacity available at the establishment of a session to guarantee user experience, often at the detriment of other connections / devices. It is wrong to assume that the quality of experience in video is the result of a harmonious negotiation between content, device and networks.
It is actually quote the opposite, each party pulling in their direction with conflicting priorities.
User experience suffers as a result and we have started to see instances of users complaining or churning due to bad video experience.

All bytes are not created equal. Video weighs heavier and has a larger emotional attachment than email or browsing services when it comes to the user's experience of a network's quality. This is one of the subjects I will be presenting at Informa's Mobile Video Global Summit in Berlin, next week.

Mobile web users now spend more time per day consuming media on their mobile device than on TV, with 62% engaging with a second screen while watching TV, according to a new study by mobile ad network InMobi. 

The global study, which quizzed 15,000 mobile web users in 14 markets, found that respondents spent an average 108 minutes consuming media on their mobiles per day, compared to 93 minutes online and on PC and 92 minutes on TV. Tablet consumption ranked at 37 minutes per day.

InMobi also said that 62% of mobile web users indulge in multi-screen activities while viewing TV. Among those aged 20-34, second-screen viewing was even higher at 69%.

Social media is the most likely activity that a consumer will participate in while ‘multi-screening’ at 48%, the study found. Some 30% said they play games or listen to music and 18% said they search for additional information about products seen on TV.

“The growing trend of multi-screen viewing provides a valuable opportunity for marketers to connect with television viewers through mobile devices.  TV viewers are already using mobile devices while they watch programs on the big screen, and they seem to be looking for ways to augment the experience through their tablets and smartphones,” said InMobi’s VP of global marketing Shrikant Latkar.

YouTube makes up 24.25% of all downstream internet traffic in Europe, with file sharing is tipped to decline due to the rise of legal OTT video services, according to a new report.

The Sandvine Global Intenet Phenomena Report claims that among the European countries examined, web users had a thirst for streaming audio and video, making real-time entertainment the top traffic category with 40.4% of peak downstream traffic in the region. However, this fluctuated between 35% and 50% in different countries dependant on the availability of over-the-top services.

“Countries with access to paid services like Netflix or BBC iPlayer typically had real-time entertainment as a higher share of traffic. In Europe, countries with lower real-time entertainment share typically have higher filesharing traffic, which leads us to believe that subscribers are likely using applications like BitTorrent to procure audio and video content not available in their region,” said Sandvine.

At 24.25%, YouTube’s share of downstream internet traffic was double that of BitTorrent, which accounted for 12.22%. By comparison, Facebook was responsible for 3.97% of this traffic and Skype 1.65%.

“We believe that filesharing’s share of traffic may have finally reached its peak in terms of traffic share and will begin to experience a steady and significant decline, as paid OTT video services continue to expand their availability throughout the region,” said the study.

Sandvine added that European networks generally have a consistent set of dominant applications and services that are available in each region which account for 80-85% of all traffic, and then a set of very local websites and region-restricted applications that make up the remainder.

Europe’s mean monthly fixed internet usage of 13.4 GB and median monthly usage of 6.0 GB is significantly lower than that observed in North America, said Sandvine.

Sports media giant ESPN has talked with at least one large U.S. carrier about subsidizing wireless access to its content, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. These discusions could potentially lead to a "toll-free" data plan with carriers and open up new revenue streams for both parties.

The report, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter, said that in one potential scenario, ESPN would pay a carrier to ensure that customers viewing ESPN mobile content wouldn't have that usage counted toward their monthly data caps. Sharing advertising revenue is another potential avenue for carriers and content providers to explore, the report noted.

Importantly, the article said that such a deal between ESPN and a U.S. carrier is not imminent and that ESPN isn't sure if the economics of such an arrangement would work. An ESPN spokeswoman declined to comment.

Executives from U.S. wireless carriers, especially Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) and AT&T (NYSE:T), have openly discussed the idea of launching toll-free data plans where content providers pay for access to a carrier's network, essentially subsidizing usage of their services. Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) and T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) still offered unlimited data plans, and have not embraced the concept as thoroughly.

No such deals have come to fruition yet. However, they may be coming sooner than later, according to Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead, who discussed the topic briefly earlier this week at an investor conference. Mead said that Verizon is "exploring those opportunities and looking at every way to bring value to our customers," in the context of toll-free data plans, according to a transcript of his remarks.

The most widely understood example of the model is Amazon's Kindle, whereby the cost of downloading books is built into the cost of the book. "I would say that that could be an early representation of the model," Mead said. "If you start to think about advertising and what else you could do with it, I think we see the possibility to expand far beyond those early days." Mead added that while he did not have a timeline for when such a deal would be announced, he believes that based upon the activity of discussions in the industry it will not be very long.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said in June 2012 that he though toll free data plans likely will catch fire in the next 12 months and that "the content guys are asking for it."

ESPN seems like an ideal company to test out such a model, since the company now has 45 million digital users, including about 16 million that access ESPN content exclusively from mobile devices, according to the Journal. The company not only has a mobile website but also numerous apps, including WatchESPN, which streams the live signals from ESPN's TV channels to mobile devices. Additionally, ScoreCenter, the company's top mobile app, has been downloaded more than 40 million times.

The report noted that "one big carrier" told ESPN that significant numbers of its subscribers reach their monthly cap before the end of the month, which causes data usage to drop. For ESPN and other content companies, a toll-free data arrangement would let them bypass usage caps. For carriers, the deals could present a new revenue growth stream as smartphone penetration continues to rise and subscriber growth slows. If ESPN struck a deal with one major carrier, it would likely do so with others, especially those with usage-based data plans.

In December, Comcast started to allow its Xfinity TV customers who also subscribe to Showtime to download Dexter, Homeland and other hit original series to Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad and Android tablets and smartphones for offline viewing. Comcast, which has a marketing and innovation joint venture with Verizon Wireless, said that Verizon customers would be able to download and stream content directly to mobile devices via Verizon's 4G LTE network. Importantly, Comcast spokesman Peter Dobrow told FierceCable at the time that the data consumed for downloading content via the Verizon network would count toward the subscriber's mobile data plans.

Still, not every content company is as keen on the deals, and the Journal reported that a least one other major media company rejected such plans because they did not want to pay carriers to subsidize usage of their apps.

Additionally, the plans could attract the interest of the FCC, which has codified net neutrality rules for wireless and wired networks (Verizon has challenged the rules in court and a federal appeals court is expected to rule on them this year). The rules go light on wireless networks and wireless carriers do not face the same restrictions wired operators will on blocking Web traffic and other applications--a ban on unreasonable discrimination in transmitting lawful network traffic.

"Creating a second revenue stream for mobile broadband is the holy grail for wireless operators but collecting fees from content companies would probably make the FCC take a close look into the policy implications," Paul Gallant, managing director at Guggenheim Securities, told the Journal. An FCC spokesman declined to comment.

 

Mobixell Networks, the world’s leading independent provider of Mobile Video Optimization and Web Acceleration Technologies, gains significant market growth in a recent video optimization report. According to {Core Analysis} report, Mobixell ascends to 19% market share in the Video Optimization segment demonstrating a significant market growth, indicating that the company has grown faster than the market in terms of market acquisition.

Mobixell Seamless Access Flagship product is a Multi Service Platform that delivers the industry’s most effective Mobile Video Optimization and Web Acceleration tools. The Seamless Access platform enables mobile operators to leverage existing data infrastructure to generate new service revenues and provide the most satisfying mobile broadband experience possible while reducing network costs and complexity.

“We are proud to be acknowledged as the market leader in this segment and see this as a clear indicator of Mobixell’s technology and customer satisfaction,“ said Noam Green, VP Marketing at Mobixell. “As mobile video usage continues to sky rocket, mobile operators use Mobixell Seamless Access as a way to manage video congestion while retaining superior quality of experience.”

“Mobixell has made a significant market share leap in 2012 reaching 19% overall market share by penetrating new geographies and accounts as well as expanding their existing customer base,” said Patrick Lopez, CEO of {Core analysis}, the research firm that conducted the Video Optimization Research. The market share calculations are based on number of individual deployments from a proprietary {Core analysis} database, collecting data such as vendors, resellers, value of the deployment in term of total cost of ownership for the operator, operator name, country and region. These data are cross-referenced from vendors' and operators' individual disclosures.

About Mobixell: 
Mobixell Networks provides intelligent mobile Internet solutions to mobile operators that optimize data networks and maximize data profitability.

Mobixell’s flagship product, Seamless Access, enables mobile operators to intelligently manage, optimize, and monetize the surging mobile data and video traffic while giving subscribers an exceptional user experience.

Mobixell has over 400 deployments around the world, including Verizon, Vodafone, Bharti, Orange, and Telefonica, reaching over one billion mobile subscribers. Mobixell also provides specially adapted services in Mobile Video and TV, Mobile Internet and broadband, and mobile messaging. Founded in late 2000, Mobixell is a US-based company with offices in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, India, Indonesia, China, Japan, South Africa and Israel.

For more information, visit: 
http://www.mobixell.com 
http://www.mobixell.com/blog ;
http://www.twitter.com/mobixell

About {Core analysis}: 
{Core analysis} is a leading independent industry analyst and consulting practice providing technology vendors, service providers and investors with advisory services on video, OTT, payTV and mobile. Due diligence, market study, competitive research, new product introduction are some of the services provided. {Core analysis} releases yearly its mobile video optimization report , and chairs various industry events. For more information, visitcoreanalysis.ca.

Press Contact: 
Karine Regev 
Mobixell 
Tel: +972 543 505 300 
Email: karine(dot)regev(at)mobixell(dot)com

Patrick Lopez 
{Core analysis} 
Tel: +1 514 823 0314 
Email: Patrick(dot)lopez(at)coreanalysis(dot)ca

US-based rating agency Nielsen has launched a pilot programme that will see measure audiences for TV content viewed online.

The Nielsen Digital Program Ratings trial will begin later this month and run through July, with participation from the five major TV networks – NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and The CW – along with A+E, Discovery, Univision and online portal AOL.

The scheme will provide overnight audience data for TV programming viewed online, including unique audience, stream counts and reach by age and gender.

It will also tie-in with and use the same measurement methods used by Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings – which delivers TV-comparable overnight metrics for online advertising campaigns.

Together, Nielsen claims that its Digital Program Ratings and Online Campaign Ratings will offer “a more holistic view of the online and TV audience for both programming content and associated ad campaigns.”

“The potential to measure video viewing of specific programs on linear TV as well as the Internet is significant. It’s an important step toward reaching the ‘holy grail’ of true cross-platform measurement,” said NBC Universal’s president of research and media development, Alan Wurtzel.

Eric Solomon, senior vice-president for Global Digital Audience Measurement at Nielsen claimed the pilot is a “major milestone for the industry.”

Nielsen Digital Program Ratings is due a commercial release later this year. While the initial focus will be the measurement of TV content viewed online, additional content types and devices will be supported in future releases.