Throughout the incredible journey of the telecom OSS/BSS sector over
the last 10 years, VanillaPlus has remained a reliable source of both key
news but also informative, objective and thought-provoking assessments of
the key trends which have shaped our industry. I am looking forward to
VanillaPlus and their more recent Stream journal continuing to play a key
role in providing valuable insights as we enter one of the most exciting
phases of the telecoms OSS/BSS market evolutions.
Kieran Moynihan
Vice President & CTO Telecoms
IBM Tivoli Division
IPTV
BT and Microsoft partner to deliver TV, games and movies through Xbox 360
US-based Microsoft Corporation and the UK’s BT are bringing together the next-gen TV service, BT Vision with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 games and entertainment
system. BT broadband customers will soon be able to receive the best in
high definition gaming, television and movies through an Xbox 360
console, in an “all-in-one entertainment experience”, as the companies
put it.
BT Vision, which is powered by the Microsoft Mediaroom Internet
Protocol TV (IPTV) platform, plans to launch this first-of-its-kind
device and service offering in mid-2008. The partnership will enable any BT Broadband customer to use an Xbox 360 console to access the BT Vision service and its extensive library of
on-demand content, giving instant access to hundreds of movies and
thousands of hours of sporting events, television programming, music videos and other digital content, such as BT Vision Sport’s English FA Premier League football matches. The service will be available to existing and future Xbox 360 console owners.
Xbox LIVE, described as “the largest online social network in the
living room”, will be integrated to provide consumers with a wide range
of community-based features, such as voice chat, sending and receiving
text and voice messages, and accessing Xbox LIVE Marketplace, all while
watching TV. For example, while a TV viewer is enjoying his or her
football game, they can receive a message from a friend inviting them
to join a voice chat, or play a game of their own with FIFA Soccer.
Addressable advertising may soon be adopted in cable and IPTV services
Growing broadband penetration, changing consumption habits, service convergence and the rise of
multiple service operators (MSOs) are creating a diverse landscape
for
entertainment consumption. Advertising continues to play a significant
part in revenue generation, but there is considerable pressure
to adapt to new
business models using advanced technological solutions.
This is one of the conclusions of Datamonitor’s new report, “The Advanced TV Advertising Market, 2008”. It addresses
technological evolution, new business models, the competitive
landscape and developing implications for advanced advertising in the
near term. The report highlights the business case for investing in an
on-demand addressable
advertising solution, and assesses potential return on investment (ROI)
for digital cable and IPTV operators in developed pay-TV markets.
Chris Khouri, Media and Broadcasting Analyst and author of the report, says: “As
traditional forms of advertising begin to lose some of their
effectiveness due to multi-platform distribution and audience
fragmentation, there is increasing pressure
to create effective
solutions to combat
these challenges.
“One
method is through addressing channel mediums (the use of the
distribution network) as being just as important to target the correct
audiences as the content itself. This involves boosting the
effectiveness of
advertising (producing higher ROI Positives) in order to charge higher
cost per thousand (CPM) premiums to raise net advertising revenue
(NAR). Home addressable advertising is a potential method to tackle
this issue by targeting specific households with relevant advertising
spots,”
he
says.
Broadcasters are not expected to need to make large
CapEx investments for home addressability
VOD,
both free-to-view and pay-per-view (PPV), is a pivotal service in a
cable and IPTV operators product portfolio. Furthermore, most major
tier 1 and tier 2 operators are expected to be making, or
have budgeted to make, the transition towards newer enhanced DPI
solutions, such as switched video broadcast (SVB). Bearing in mind
these developments, capital expenditure (CapEx) into specific hardware
and software solutions has, in many cases, already been made.
Addressable on-demand advertising
uses much of the same software and hardware solutions (excluding
campaign management, etc) of traditional VOD services.
Considering
this, the use of addressable commercials does not involve a high degree
of capital investment. In fact, the use of enhanced DPI solutions and
addressable advertising is outlined as having
the potential to lower operational expenditure (OpEx) and improve
bandwidth efficiencies through a greater return on bandwidth (ROB).
Flash-based on-demand servers could lower OpEx for broadcasters
A
further development that is set to be particularly attractive to the
on-demand ad insertion players is the emergence of Flash-based rich
media servers. Flash-based servers benefit from having no
moving parts and are outlined by vendors as being around 100 times more
reliable, having 10 times lower power consumption demands as well as
allowing for easier upgradeability and scalability.
As broadcasters
strive to reduce OpEx in as many ways as possible, lower power
consumption and greater
reliability have a definite resonance in lowering total cost of
ownership (TCO) of an on-demand server.
Comptel buys Axiom Systems to strengthen IP service suite
Comptel
is strengthening its position as a leading provider of fulfilment solutions for
broadband, mobile and next-generation IP networks by acquiring Axiom Systems
(Axiom), a UK-based software product company focusing on broadband fulfilment. The acquisition will help Comptel to capitalise on service providers' growing investments in new IP-based services, like VoIP and IPTV.
Axiom Systems is a
specialist in IP fulfilment with a good market position in Europe as well as key customers in Asia-Pacific. Its net sales last year were £7.8 million (€11.5 million) and the company was
EBITDA negative in 2007. Axiom currently has 87 employees.
The net sales in 2008 are estimated to grow about 15%. Consolidation
of Axiom is estimated to increase Comptel net sales around 10% in 2008. Axiom’s EBITDA
impact to Comptel in 2008 is expected to be neutral before one-off items, which
are estimated to be €1 million.
Mr Sami Erviö, president and CEO of Comptel, commented: “I am
enthusiastic about this acquisition, since now Comptel is uniquely strongly
positioned to support its customers in automating the delivery and management
of new IP-based services like IPTV. With Axiom we are a leading provider of
service fulfilment solutions for fixed, mobile and convergent
operators and service providers. Axiom has excellent IP network competencies
and has proven capabilities for next generation service fulfilment. Together we are well positioned globally
and especially strong in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Middle East. We now have the right
competencies, the leading customers and the presence to gain market share in
the emerging all-IP network based fixed-mobile convergent telecom
industry.”
Comptel Corporation is acquiring Axiom Systems Holdings Ltd for a
cash consideration of £7.0 million (€8.9 million). Comptel Corp pays an additional purchase price if Axiom
Group’s audited net sales in 2008 are more than €13.5 million. The
additional price may vary between £4 million and £16 million. The maximum amount will
be paid if Axiom Group’s audited net sales in 2008 reach €21.6
million. The additional purchase price is comprised of both cash and Comptel
shares.
Axiom Group’s balance sheet will be free of interest-bearing debt
and will have a positive net working capital balance. The acquisition is
financed through Comptel Corporation’s liquid assets and by raising
approximately €5.0 million of debt. If the additional purchase price is
paid, a maximum of 4.8 million new Comptel shares will be issued.
The acquisition is completed on 21 April 2008 from which Axiom Group
will be consolidated. The main selling shareholders are private equity funds
managed by Geocapital Partners, Hg Capital and Axiom’s management.
The annual cost synergies from the transaction are estimated to be €2 million starting from 2009. One-off items of restructuring and integration
costs are estimated to be €1 million in 2008. Furthermore, Comptel expects
revenue synergies to realise 2009 onwards from cross-selling the convergent
dynamic OSS
solution to existing Axiom and Comptel customer bases and by leveraging
Comptel’s stronger market position outside Europe to increase Axiom’s solution
sales. The project for integrating the businesses is estimated to be completed
by the end of 2008.
Gareth Senior, the CEO and CTO of Axiom Systems, will continue in his
role as CEO of Axiom. He has been also nominated as a member of Comptel Group’s Executive Board.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH: Inaccurate Billing
Accurate billing is still proving
to be a challenge with many ‘triple play’ providers under- and over-billing for
content. So VanillaPlus doffs its cap to James Brunson of Spirent who was quoted as follows recently.
Brunson, Landslide product
marketing manager at Spirent, explained: “We’re seeing a common theme across
many operators worldwide in that there can be issues when it comes to billing
accurately. Many of these glitches are due to poor network intelligence and the
fact that many triple play providers have grown by acquisition meaning a
‘mishmash’ of systems which don’t always talk accurately to each other all of
the time.
"It’s not uncommon to find network nodes which are known to be
inaccurate with rules written to counter-balance inaccurate billing. Whilst
these are accurate most of the time, it is not fail-safe. There are particular
issues when it comes to differentiating between ‘session-based billing’ which is
flat-rate or pay for duration (such as an international phone call) and
‘service-based billing’, where one pays extra for specific content (such as
video on demand). As such many customers are being billed
inaccurately," added Brunson.
Either way, operators stand to
lose. Overbilled customers may complain and overload customer service staff and
help lines. There is also the risk of churn should they remain dissatisfied. And
obviously customers which are under billed represent lost
revenue.
Brunson continued: "Deep packet inspection will
certainly help to look at service based billing and discover exactly what
customers are being billed for. However it is just as important that operators
test continuously to ensure that rules written relate to actual traffic
patterns.”
While this may not come as news to many service providers, VanillaPlus finds it
refreshing to hear such candour on a widespread industry problem.
Japan's NEC surprises market with acquisition of US-based OSS vendor NetCracker
Tokyo, June 27,
2008 - NEC Corporation (NEC) today
announced a definitive agreement to acquire NetCracker Technology Corp.
(NetCracker), a US-based software and solutions company delivering operations support systems (OSS) transformation to
communications service providers across the globe.
NEC reports that this strategic acquisition
underscores its "long-standing commitment" to offer innovative solutions to the
communications industry, enabling them to transform their business, and rapidly
deploy new infrastructure and services. It does, however, represent a significant change of direction into OSS for the Japanese company, that is better known for its device-side products. The terms of the deal have not yet been publicised.
With this acquisition NEC adds a
key element of software and services to its market leading portfolio of mobile
and fixed infrastructure products. NetCracker’s products, services and domain
expertise will be integral to
leveraging complementary assets within both companies.
“NetCracker has distinguished itself
with a record of successful OSS transformations and exceptional software
solutions and professional services for leading communications service
providers,” said Mr Kaoru Yano, president of NEC. “The acquisition of
NetCracker strengthens NEC’s offerings and brings even greater value to the
global communications industry.”
“NEC and NetCracker share a vision
of operations and business support systems being critical to communications
service providers, enabling them to build a sustainable competitive advantage,”
said Andrew Feinberg, CEO of NetCracker. “NEC’s scale and solution offering will
help us extend our core application and services footprint and continue to
broaden the solutions we offer to our global customers.”
NEC’s communications carrier
business is continually expanding and the company’s superior line-up of
telecommunication products includes full line and full layer support; the early
adoption of next generation network-related business and globally competitive business models such
as Pasolink and submarine cable systems.
NEC will now leverage the
acquisition of NetCracker to strengthen its existing business foundations and to
provide total solutions for communications businesses whose IP and service
diversification needs continue to grow. The company anticipates that OSS will represent a key element to new international growth that is
expected to generate approximately 200 billion yen over the next five years.
NetCracker’s know-how in
transforming OSS enables communications service providers
to deploy new services, as well as build operational excellence and closer customer
relationships. As service providers move to an all-IP environment and become
more diversified, the company’s expertise becomes an increasingly essential
element of their success. Furthermore, the ongoing debut of innovative new
services, including IPTV, Triple-Play, 3G and others, provides exciting new
opportunities for deploying the next generation of OSS. NetCracker employs
approximately 1,000 people worldwide and its customers include France Telecom,
MTS, Sprint, TELUS, Telstra, UPC and other leading communications service
providers (CSPs) globally.
The new business relationship is
expected to foster innovative solutions that address the needs of CSPs and accelerate NEC’s international software
business. NEC is committed to retaining the relationships and go-to-market
strategies that NetCracker has developed. When the transaction closes
NetCracker will operate as an independent business unit led by its current
management team, and will become the centrepiece of NEC’s communications service
provider software business.
Russia's SMM uses NDS to protect IP and mobile TV content
London, UK. 24
July, 2008 – NDS, a leading provider of technology solutions
for digital pay-TV, today announced that Russian media giant Sistema Mass Media has selected the NDS Unified Headend™ to manage and protect TV content delivery to subscribers
across both IP and mobile networks.
The NDS Unified
Headend™ integrates conditional access (CA), Digital Rights Management (DRM) and
third party applications, allowing operators to deliver secure broadcast and
Video-On-Demand (VOD) services to a variety of devices – set-top boxes (STBs),
mobile phones, PCs, Portable Media Players (PMPs) and digital video recorders
(DVRs). SMM will use the NDS Unified Headend to deliver content to STBs, PCs and
mobile devices with optimum operational efficiency, using a single system to
control content distribution.
SMM’s
deployment will include VideoGuard Mobile™, NDS’ secure mobile TV solution, part of the NDS Unified Headend, to
protect its upcoming DVB-H mobile TV service. Digital Teleradiobroadcasting Ltd (DTB), an SMM
subsidiary, will launch the mobile TV service.
The DVB-H
service will debut in Moscow, which will be followed by a series of launches in
16 other Russian cities with populations of over one million. Unlike most other
DVB-H deployments which are tied to a specific mobile operator and require a
subscription and operator-specific SIM, SMM’s upcoming DVB-H service will be
available to all Russian mobile subscribers regardless of their network service
provider.
VideoGuard
Mobile supports both the Open Security Framework (OSF) and OMA BCAST smartcard
profile standards and offers a clear and seamless migration path between both.
VideoGuard Mobile is fully compliant with DVB-H, DVB-SH, DMB, MediaFLO, CMMB and
STIMI standards.
OSS contract to extend Clarity's support for NGN services by PT Telkom
Clarity has won a third contract with Indonesia’s Tier 1 incumbent
telecoms service provider, PT Telkomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom). Clarity
currently provides PT Telkom with a single strategic OSS platform used for
inventory, provisioning and assurance of all its networks and services, based on
a hybrid of next generation networks (NGN), IP/ MPLS and legacy
technologies.
The new contract
will see Clarity’s solution
supporting PT Telkom’s Metro-Ethernet services that are currently being rolled
out within its heterogeneous NGN network. The system will be integrated
with other equipment providers involved in the project, including Cisco,
Juniper, Alcatel-Lucent, Tellabs and Huawei.
Clarity’s
Metro-Ethernet solution will offer complete lifecycle management for delivery
and support of next-generation applications and services such as IPTV, Video on
Demand, Voice over IP, storage extension and disaster recovery. It will also
enable a higher level of customer service while controlling operational
expenditures as demand increases.
Indra Utoyo, director of Information Technology at PT Telkom Indonesia, commented:
“Clarity’s solution was
chosen as it was superior to anything else on the market. It supports Quality of
Service provisioning for triple play (voice, video and data) services that will
run over a converged network. In addition, any network event or fault can be
quickly identified, assessed immediately and resolved promptly before any of our
customer’s Service Level Agreements are impacted. We see this as essential in
being able to offer our customers the best possible experience and in supporting
our uninterrupted subscriber connectivity. It is a very flexible solution that
also offers scalability.”
Raj
Thangiah, vice president of Sales and Marketing at Clarity, added “Service Level
Agreements are the cornerstone of differentiating carriers’ service offerings. A
Unified OSS solution allows for a powerful link to be created between the network, the service and the end users, and it returns strong business benefits
in terms of simple integration, cost savings and improved customer experience.
With deep visibility across the network and powerful management tools, Clarity’s
Metro-Ethernet solution enables service providers to guarantee superior
performance and prepares them for future network
developments.”
Clarity is the
first Next Generation OSS to be deployed end-to-end, across all lines of
business, by leading Tier 1 service providers. Clarity’s installed base includes
such operators as Hutchison, Telekom Malaysia, as well as India’s
giant Reliance Communications.
Comptel delivers Axiom broadband licenses in India
OSS vendor, Comptel has
signed an agreement to deliver and maintain the AXIOSS suite for
broadband services at a leading telecom operator in India.
Comptel announced in April that it was strengthening its position in broadband and IP fulfilment by acquiring Axiom Systems, developers of the AXIOSS product suite. (For more details see our April report: http://www.vanillaplus.com/news/view/23 )
The
total value of the agreement is put at US$4.0 million. Comptel estimates that US$2.2
million of this will be recognised as revenue during 2008.
“This is a major
broadband service fulfilment delivery for us,
following our recent acquisition of Axiom Systems. The deal further strengthens
our established position in the fast growing Indian telecom market”, said
Sami Erviö, president and CEO of Comptel.
Digitania Pakistan to provide services and content to GEO.tv
Islamabad, Pakistan. August 19, 2008. Digitania Pakistan has announced today that it has signed a deal
with GEO TV (www.geo.tv) to provide GEO TV with
- Mobile Service Delivery Platform
- Content Hosting and Management Platform, and its
- WAP Portal System
These systems are
designed on an open architecture giving GEO TV enhanced capabilities to
offer mobile-based interactive products and services to its viewers and
to constantly add new features and products to its existing system.
The solutions provided by
Digitania to GEO TV will significantly reduce time to market and
will make Digitania a one-stop-shop for the content and service delivery needs of the Pakistan TV channel.
The implementation of
this system -- which is expected to be completed by November, 2008 -- is a landmark
achievement of Digitania. It is increasing its
clientele in various industry sectors and its ability to deploy
state of the art, customised and demand-specific systems for companies
like GEO TV, while maintaining performance benchmarks even at places where traffic and
demand are enormously high.