Microsoft Releases Beta ADK for Mediaroom

Microsoft has released the beta version of its Microsoft Mediaroom Presentation Framework Application Development Kit (ADK) to nearly 150 companies globally. These companies included content providers, applications developers, as well as its service provider customers including ATT and BT.

This ADK is intended to provide service providers, content providers, and applications developers with the ability to create interactive programming and applications that enhance the basic capabilities of Mediaroom.

I met with Microsoft in Mountain View yesterday to get an idea of what this meant. They demonstrated three demos that were created for CES in January that were based on this ADK:

• NASCAR application that gives the viewer the ability to select the specific in car camera displayed in a window on the screen and the driver audio that he or she would like to view or hear. It also provides access to information about the race, previous races, and the drivers that can also be displayed on the TV. These displays brings content that is already available on the web to the TV screen.
• A boxing application that permits the user to select the microphone audio to be played on the TV. It provides audio from four microphones. All four audio tracks are recorded on the DVR when the program is broadcast and may be selected during later playback.
• A TV based social networking application that permits to set up and join groups. Group members can communicate with each other using text entered via the remote control. It is possible to find out who in a group is watching the show you are watching in order to chat about it.

Microsoft stated that it is working closely with the companies in the beta program and are using ideas that come back from this group to decide how to enhance this ADK. It has found that this group often comes up with good ideas that it had not thought of itself.

This kind of application capability is a good answer to what IPTV does better than cable (or satellite). Of course Microsoft and its service provider customers will have to work hard to stay ahead of the U.S. cable companies. It could also be used to enhance the advertising experience as well as the programming itself.

Corbina in Russia Goes with Microsoft

VimpelCom in Russia has signed an agreement to use Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV software for its Corbina TV IPTV service. The service will also use Motorola set-top boxes with or without a 160 GB hard disk. The service will support both SD and HD programming and will be launched in the middle of 2008. It will have 100 broadcast channels and 1,000 films, cartoons, and series available on demand. Corbina provides fiber based services to almost every apartment building in Moscow and many other cities in Russia.

This is another strong win for Microsoft. The Russian market is becoming a strong telecom market and it looks like IPTV will do well there.

Verizon Offers Starz Video Download Service

Verizon offers a $5.99 per month Starz Play video download service to broadband subscribers in the U.S. from a website it has set up for the service. The movies are viewed on the PC using viewer software downloaded from the website.

Films are stored on the PC and may be viewed off line. Films will be automatically deleted from the PC when they are removed from the service. Some titles will expire in a few days and others will be available for months. It will typically take 30 to 90 minutes to download a film. Movies can be watched while they are downloading. The service uses Microsoft digital rights management software and does not permit burning the movies onto a DVD.

Verizon's broadband customers can pay for the Starz Play monthly subscription fee on their Verizon bill. Other broadband users can charge the fee to a credit card.

I have felt for a long time that the Telcos need to get involved with over the top Internet content. I think that this is just the start and that the Telcos will eventually merge unmanaged over the top content with their managed IPTV services.

Venezuela's Cantv IPTV Plans

TV Latam published an article describing the plans of Cantv, the state owned incumbent carrier in Venezuela for IPTV. The company is preparing the market for a 2010 IPTV service launch. It expects to have 800 thousand IPTV subscribers after five years. It plans to achieve a high penetration with subsidized services for the lowest-income sectors and a competitive offering for the other segments.

It is worth reading the TV Latam article because it discusses the political approach that Cantv is taking. As a major petroleum producer, Venezuela would seem to have the resources to pull this off.

Zeugma Introduces Service Delivery Router

Zeugma, a Vancouver based start up, has introduced a service delivery router that combines deep packet inspection with the ability to support applications in a single box. Its objective is to support the deployment of value added services over broadband networks including managed Telco IPTV services and unmanaged over the top Internet TV and video.

Zeugma's market research indicates that more than 75 percent of the people surveyed are interested in buying or renting movies over the Internet. This research also indicates that people are not willing to pay much to begin watching the movie in a few minutes rather than waiting to download the entire movie first. While more than 55 percent would pay an extra $.25, only 40 percent would pay an extra $1.00 for a more immediate experience. On the other hand, more than 60 percent would be willing to watch a 30 second ad for the more immediate service. Zeugma stated that this shows that improved QoS can increase revenues.

The company states that its product's application awareness facilitates the classification of traffic. Its bandwidth manager can allocate or deny resources. It manages QoS and bandwidth on a per subscriber and per flow basis.

Zeugma's system is under evaluation at several major carriers including at BT.

Service management is clearly an important issue for broadband service providers. I don't think that best efforts will be adequate as the number and importance of these services increase.

However, the difficulties of managing video, especially Telco IPTV video should not be underestimated. We published a report Networking Strategies for TelcoTV Services that examines these issues in detail. You can request a free white paper on this subject.

Our conclusion was that as video on demand, replay TV, and other unicast forms of content from managed IPTV services will overwhelm broadband networks with video traffic. We half jokingly state that QoS will not work in this environment because there will not be enough low priority packets to discard.

While the effectiveness of the Zeugma and other similar system may be questionable for video traffic, especially for managed services, I think that they will be key for other services, especially for VoIP. I expect that they will be important on 4G mobile networks where all services, including voice, will be delivered over packet networks.

Chunghwa Telecom Starting Microsoft Deployment

According to an article in the Taiwan Economic News, Chungwha Telecom now has 10 thousand IPTV subscribers on its Microsoft Mediaroom platform. Microsoft and Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom will launch the IPTV Ecosystem Development Center in Taiwan to focus on the IPTV market. This operation will work with Taiwan`s set-top box makers and content providers to tap markets overseas.

Chunghwa is using Tatung set-top boxes to support its 10 thousand Mediaroom subscribers. It is using Asustek and Hon Hai set-top boxes for its 480 thousand Alcatel-Lucent's OMP middleware, giving it a current total of 490 thousand IPTV subscribers.

This is the start of the insertion of Microsoft's Mediaroom into Chunghwa's IPTV service. It took Chunghwa several years to convert 40 thousand Orca subscribers to Alcatel-Lucent's OMP. It will be interesting to see how this process will work for Mediaroom.

BNS White Paper on Selecting IPTV Middleware

BNS, the IPTV consultancy headquartered in Hong Kong, has published a white paper that provides guidance on how to select middleware.

This white paper provides some practical advice and is worth reading by those starting to think about these issues.