Best Tone Information Service Corporation Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Telecom Corporation Ltd., with the intent to deploy a video information distribution network in the Hunan province of China. This is the second large-scale interactive advertising system that UTStarcom’s RollingStream® IPTV platform will support in China.
Best Tone is working with UTStarcom to build and operate a Chinese-specific, building-based video system, with 3,500 iPAD1000 terminals scheduled to go live in office buildings, government facilities, supermarkets, hotels, hospitals and schools in the Hunan Province this year. The network, intended to stream commercial advertisements throughout Hunan Province, is expected to support a total of 10,000 terminals in the region upon completion of the project. The iPAD1000 is a complete advertising system that is akin to a kiosk.
This is an interesting application of IPTV technology to mass advertising. I expect that this approach should be adopted on a broad basis globally.
Showing posts with label UTstarcom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UTstarcom. Show all posts
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
China Telecom Selects Vendores
China Telecom announced the companies that its provincial operators should use for their IPTV services. For systems contracts, ZTE , UTStarcom, and Alcatel-Lucent were chosen.
For standard-definition set-top boxes ZTE, UTStarcom, Coship, Motorola, Huawei, Postcom, Sunniwell, Alcatel-Lucent, Yuxing, 30 Kaitian and Changhong. The provincial operators should give preference to these companies in the order that they are listed.
For high-definition set-top boxes ZTE, UTStarcom, Alcatel-Lucent, Postcom and Changhong.
The prices for terminal equipment have been set and the provincial operators are not allowed to renegotiate prices.
This should clear the way for China Telecom's provincial operators to ramp up their IPTV efforts. This is likely to significantly accelerate the IPTV services in China, which has basically been limited to the Shanghai area until now.
For standard-definition set-top boxes ZTE, UTStarcom, Coship, Motorola, Huawei, Postcom, Sunniwell, Alcatel-Lucent, Yuxing, 30 Kaitian and Changhong. The provincial operators should give preference to these companies in the order that they are listed.
For high-definition set-top boxes ZTE, UTStarcom, Alcatel-Lucent, Postcom and Changhong.
The prices for terminal equipment have been set and the provincial operators are not allowed to renegotiate prices.
This should clear the way for China Telecom's provincial operators to ramp up their IPTV efforts. This is likely to significantly accelerate the IPTV services in China, which has basically been limited to the Shanghai area until now.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
UTStarcom Video Advertising System in Guanxi
The Guanxi Telecom Company, a subsidiary of China Telecom, will use UTStarcom's RollingStream IPTV platform for a new interactive advertising system. The UTStarcom system will provide 3,600 concurrent IPTV streams in 14 cities initially. Set-top boxes will be deployed in supermarkets, department stores, office buildings, and in Guanxi Telecom's facilities.
UTStarcom stated that this system has two fundamental advantages. One is its ability to scale to a large number of screens. An IPTV system is designed to support hundreds of thousand of concurrent viewers, many more than the likely number of advertising screens.
The second advantage is its ability to provide unique streams to different groups of screens. Each stream is like a broadcast channel or a set of on demand content. IPTV systems are built so that each viewer can watch different programming, which enables the delivery of targeted content to each screen. This could be organized by store or even by department within a store.
UTStarcom has pointed out to the past that this kind of advertising is a big business with significant revenues attached to it.
UTStarcom is doing a lot of good work identifying other applications for IPTV systems. These applications can significantly enhance the revenue potential for these services.
UTStarcom stated that this system has two fundamental advantages. One is its ability to scale to a large number of screens. An IPTV system is designed to support hundreds of thousand of concurrent viewers, many more than the likely number of advertising screens.
The second advantage is its ability to provide unique streams to different groups of screens. Each stream is like a broadcast channel or a set of on demand content. IPTV systems are built so that each viewer can watch different programming, which enables the delivery of targeted content to each screen. This could be organized by store or even by department within a store.
UTStarcom has pointed out to the past that this kind of advertising is a big business with significant revenues attached to it.
UTStarcom is doing a lot of good work identifying other applications for IPTV systems. These applications can significantly enhance the revenue potential for these services.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
UTStarcom Pioneering Metro IPTV Video Surveillance
I spoke with UTStarcom about its Safe-City video surveillance project in Benxi, China with China Netcom. UTStarcom's IPTV video system to receive video surveillance from about 1,000 cameras. It developed a backend that provides the ability to record the videos from all of these cameras in real time. This is like recording 1,000 TV channels at one time onto video on demand servers for an NPVR IPTV service.
UTStarcom said that its systems brings the advantages of digital technology such as higher image quality and lower costs to the surveillance application, which is generally implemented using analog technology today.
UTStarcom also said that this approach can give much more flexibility in viewing the recorded content. Its IPTV video system provides the ability to view surveillance videos over any broadband connection or even over mobile devices using Mobile TV technology.
It will be interesting to see if IPTV technology becomes broadly deployed in surveillance applications. I guess that there is a lot of additional work to get a system like this to scale up to 100 thousand or a million cameras. I would also think that archival storage of these videos will also be a real challenge, especially on a very large system.
UTStarcom said that its systems brings the advantages of digital technology such as higher image quality and lower costs to the surveillance application, which is generally implemented using analog technology today.
UTStarcom also said that this approach can give much more flexibility in viewing the recorded content. Its IPTV video system provides the ability to view surveillance videos over any broadband connection or even over mobile devices using Mobile TV technology.
It will be interesting to see if IPTV technology becomes broadly deployed in surveillance applications. I guess that there is a lot of additional work to get a system like this to scale up to 100 thousand or a million cameras. I would also think that archival storage of these videos will also be a real challenge, especially on a very large system.
UTStarcom Sees High On Demand Usage
UTStarcom is seeing on average that 60 percent of the IPTV viewing in its Shanghai deployment uses unicast video on demand content. It expects that this percentage will grow next month due the availability of on demand viewing of all of the events at the Beijing Olympics.
The network it has deployed in Shanghai supports both multicast and unicast, but there are some areas where only unicast is available. There are areas that are served only by an ATM network that is not well suited to multicast. Shanghai Telecom often does not deploy IPTV services in these areas, but when it does, it will provide both broadcast as well as on demand content using unicast. There is no problem offering multicast IPTV in areas served by an IP netowrk.
UTStarcom acknowledges that the extensive use of unicast will generate a significant load on the metro aggregation network. It stated that this has not been a problem as yet.
Shanghai is the largest IPTV that I have found with such high usage of unicast on demand IPTV services. My guess is that the traffic loads that this service has generated have not been a significant problem yet because the percentage of broadband subscribers using IPTV services is still quite low. I believe things will change as IPTV penetration grows.
The network it has deployed in Shanghai supports both multicast and unicast, but there are some areas where only unicast is available. There are areas that are served only by an ATM network that is not well suited to multicast. Shanghai Telecom often does not deploy IPTV services in these areas, but when it does, it will provide both broadcast as well as on demand content using unicast. There is no problem offering multicast IPTV in areas served by an IP netowrk.
UTStarcom acknowledges that the extensive use of unicast will generate a significant load on the metro aggregation network. It stated that this has not been a problem as yet.
Shanghai is the largest IPTV that I have found with such high usage of unicast on demand IPTV services. My guess is that the traffic loads that this service has generated have not been a significant problem yet because the percentage of broadband subscribers using IPTV services is still quite low. I believe things will change as IPTV penetration grows.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Optibase Focusing on Asia
I had an interview with Optibase to discuss its recent announcement that its encoders are being included in the Bharti Airtel IPTV service in India. Optibase is working with UTStarcom at Bharti. UTStarcom is supplying the middleweare, the video on demand systems, the set-top boxes, and the system integration.
In addition to Bharti Airtel, Optibase is included in the IPTV deployments in India by Aksh and Time Broadband. Both of these companies have been licensed by MTNL to offer IPTV services over MTNL's network.
UTStarcom is working with three major integrators and IPTV suppliers UTStarcom, ZTE, and Huawei. UTStarcom has a strong position in the IPTV markets in China and India. ZTE also has a strong position in the IPTV market in China. Huawei is the largest Chinese systems company and has a number of IPTV deployments Asia, the Russian Federation, and Africa.
Optibase expects that its relationships with UTStarcom, Huawei, and ZTE will provide it with a strong entry into the emerging IPTV market in China. Optibase has started to work on AVS products so that it can support the Chinese video compression standard.
Optibase is also making strong sales efforts into Eastern Europe and the Russian Federation. It is seeing a lot of RFPs from Eastern European service providers at this time.
Video encoders are generally acquired early in deployment of an IPTV service. A smaller service provider will need only a single headend system and will fully populate it with encoders before the service goes commercial. A large country will typically add additional headends as the IPTV service is expanded to support additional metropolitan areas.
Optibase's strategy of focusing on India, China, and Eastern Europe is sound. This where the new IPTV services are are being deployed today. The growth potential in both India and China is very strong. Optibase can expect significant continuing business from these two companies over several years as their IPTV services expand.
In addition to Bharti Airtel, Optibase is included in the IPTV deployments in India by Aksh and Time Broadband. Both of these companies have been licensed by MTNL to offer IPTV services over MTNL's network.
UTStarcom is working with three major integrators and IPTV suppliers UTStarcom, ZTE, and Huawei. UTStarcom has a strong position in the IPTV markets in China and India. ZTE also has a strong position in the IPTV market in China. Huawei is the largest Chinese systems company and has a number of IPTV deployments Asia, the Russian Federation, and Africa.
Optibase expects that its relationships with UTStarcom, Huawei, and ZTE will provide it with a strong entry into the emerging IPTV market in China. Optibase has started to work on AVS products so that it can support the Chinese video compression standard.
Optibase is also making strong sales efforts into Eastern Europe and the Russian Federation. It is seeing a lot of RFPs from Eastern European service providers at this time.
Video encoders are generally acquired early in deployment of an IPTV service. A smaller service provider will need only a single headend system and will fully populate it with encoders before the service goes commercial. A large country will typically add additional headends as the IPTV service is expanded to support additional metropolitan areas.
Optibase's strategy of focusing on India, China, and Eastern Europe is sound. This where the new IPTV services are are being deployed today. The growth potential in both India and China is very strong. Optibase can expect significant continuing business from these two companies over several years as their IPTV services expand.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
AVS Creating Lockout in China
Products from UTStarcom, ZTE, Huawei and Alcatel Shanghai Bell have been checked and accepted following tests carried out in Dalian in October 2007. The tests are targeting the application of products using home-developed AVS video compression technology on China Netcom's pilot AVS-IPTV system, which has operated steadily for more than six months.
Overseas equipment providers did not join in the tests, because they mainly support foreign standards, such as MEPG4 and H.264.
Apparently China Netcom will only adopt the AVS video compression standard in its IPTV deployment if the tests in Dalian are successful, aimed at avoiding high patent fees from using foreign standards. If equipment providers do not adopt AVS, they will lose the opportunity in China's market.
Currently China Telecom has not standardized on AVS and is using MPEG-4. Using AVS will be a requirement for the headends, the set-top boxes, and the video on demand systems in particular. If AVS takes hold in China, other companies will adopt it in order to gain access to this very large IPTV market.
Overseas equipment providers did not join in the tests, because they mainly support foreign standards, such as MEPG4 and H.264.
Apparently China Netcom will only adopt the AVS video compression standard in its IPTV deployment if the tests in Dalian are successful, aimed at avoiding high patent fees from using foreign standards. If equipment providers do not adopt AVS, they will lose the opportunity in China's market.
Currently China Telecom has not standardized on AVS and is using MPEG-4. Using AVS will be a requirement for the headends, the set-top boxes, and the video on demand systems in particular. If AVS takes hold in China, other companies will adopt it in order to gain access to this very large IPTV market.
Friday, September 28, 2007
UTStarcom Making Strides in India
I recently had an interview with UTStarcom about its recent announcement that Bharti Airtel has selected it for its IPTV service. I have a lot to learn about the Indian market, so they patiently gave me a lot of background information. I will repeat the major points here on the assumption that I am not the only one who needs to learn the basics.
There are two state run companies BSNL and MTNL that are the incumbent operators in India. MTNL is the smaller of the two companies and serves the two largest metro areas centered on Delhi and Mumbai. BSNL is much larger than MTNL and serves the rest of India, including the rural areas. India is densely populated even in rural areas, especially when compared to the U.S.
There are also three large privately held c0mpetitive telcos in India:
Bharti expects to offer IPTV in other regions after it is established in the Delhi region. It would like to have the service widely deployed across its in network in time for the Commonwealth games in 2010.
MTNL has also selected UTStarcom for its IPTV service. MTNL also expects to launch its IPTV service in the Delhi area.
These deployments in India should keep UTStarcom in the leading position in the IPTV market in Asia and to be one of the leaders globally. In fact, UTStarcom is now competiting with Motorola, Microsoft, and Alcatel for global leadership in IPTV market.
There are two state run companies BSNL and MTNL that are the incumbent operators in India. MTNL is the smaller of the two companies and serves the two largest metro areas centered on Delhi and Mumbai. BSNL is much larger than MTNL and serves the rest of India, including the rural areas. India is densely populated even in rural areas, especially when compared to the U.S.
There are also three large privately held c0mpetitive telcos in India:
- Bharti is the largest of these competitors and is headquartered in Delhi, but serves the entire country.
- Reliance is headquartered in Mumbai and serves the entire country.
- Tata is headquartered in Mumbai and serves the southern part of India.
Bharti expects to offer IPTV in other regions after it is established in the Delhi region. It would like to have the service widely deployed across its in network in time for the Commonwealth games in 2010.
MTNL has also selected UTStarcom for its IPTV service. MTNL also expects to launch its IPTV service in the Delhi area.
These deployments in India should keep UTStarcom in the leading position in the IPTV market in Asia and to be one of the leaders globally. In fact, UTStarcom is now competiting with Motorola, Microsoft, and Alcatel for global leadership in IPTV market.
Monday, September 17, 2007
UTStarcom Lands Bharti Airtel
UTStarcom announced a contract to supply its RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution to Bharti Airtel, one of India's leading integrated telecommunications service providers with more than 46 million customers.
This is a significant entry into the Indian market for UTStarcom. With its strong presence in China, UTStarcom is becoming one of the major ITPV system suppliers.
This is a significant entry into the Indian market for UTStarcom. With its strong presence in China, UTStarcom is becoming one of the major ITPV system suppliers.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
IPTV Key to UTStarcom's Turnaround
UTStarcom stated that its RollingStream end-to-end IPTV system is a key element in its strategy for returning to profitability. The company stated that many of its IPTV deployments in China are undergoing expansion. The company estimates that its IPTV platform is serving an estimated 310,000 subscribers currently. UTStarcom is also beginning to win IPTV business in India.
UTStarcom is currently the only IPTV system being used by China Telecom, including its Shanghai Telecom subsidiary. It shares the business at China Netcom with ZTE. IPTV growth in China will be very large, which puts the company in a good position in the future.
UTStarcom is currently the only IPTV system being used by China Telecom, including its Shanghai Telecom subsidiary. It shares the business at China Netcom with ZTE. IPTV growth in China will be very large, which puts the company in a good position in the future.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
UTStarcom wins new China Telecom Contract
UTStarcom won a bid to deploy its RollingStream IPTV system with China Telecom for a new commercial IPTV service in China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
UTStarcom stated that RollingStream is the most widely deployed IPTV platform in China with approximately 270,000 live subscribers to date in commercial deployments in more than 13 provinces throughout the country.
With a total population of more than five million people, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is located near the geographical central northern edge of China. The initial deployment, which has the capacity to support 10,000 subscribers, will offer 52 live broadcast television channels, 48-hour time-shifting capabilities, 3,000 hours of video-on-demand content and valued-added services including karaoke, online gaming, TV-based SMS and other interactive applications. UTStarcom is providing the video on demand servers through the set-top boxes in the subscriber's home.
UTStarcom has a strong presence in China with both China Telecom and China Netcom. Its success in China is likely to make it one of the leading IPTV system providers as these deployments in China continue to grow.
UTStarcom stated that RollingStream is the most widely deployed IPTV platform in China with approximately 270,000 live subscribers to date in commercial deployments in more than 13 provinces throughout the country.
With a total population of more than five million people, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is located near the geographical central northern edge of China. The initial deployment, which has the capacity to support 10,000 subscribers, will offer 52 live broadcast television channels, 48-hour time-shifting capabilities, 3,000 hours of video-on-demand content and valued-added services including karaoke, online gaming, TV-based SMS and other interactive applications. UTStarcom is providing the video on demand servers through the set-top boxes in the subscriber's home.
UTStarcom has a strong presence in China with both China Telecom and China Netcom. Its success in China is likely to make it one of the leading IPTV system providers as these deployments in China continue to grow.
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