Natalie Mouyal of DigiTAG follows up on her previous piece on Wednesday that reviewed the current position of MHP services in Europe.
As MHP-based interactive services are launched throughout Europe, will they encourage the uptake of digital television services? Country case-studies demonstrate that the strategy adopted for the launch of interactive services does impact the roll-out in the market. Two different types of launch strategies can be used for the free-to-air DTT platform.
In a first strategy, national governments focus on the roll-out of digital terrestrial services using simple (zapper) set-top boxes that converts the digital signal for reception on an analogue television set. This strategy encourages the uptake of DTT services by promoting the purchase of a relatively inexpensive zapper set-top box in order for viewers to access an increase in the number of television programme services. Once the DTT services are accepted by the general population, broadcasters can launch interactive services in a second step. However, this strategy results in a large quantity of zapper boxes in viewer households that will need to be converted in order to access interactive services.
In a second strategy, interactive services are an integral part of the initial launch of DTT services and viewers are educated to understand that television can provide a wide range of new services. DTT is no longer a simple translation of a previously existing television services but rather a new television experience. However, this strategy requires a greater financial investment given the higher cost of an MHP-enabled set-top box when compared with zapper set-top box.
Generally, countries have tended mix the two strategies. Viewers have benefited from both an increase in the number of television service programmes available, as well as interactive television services. Yet, this combination has not always allowed for an impressive take-off of MHP based interactive services. In the case of Finland, consumers could choose between a zapper set-top box that allows them to access more television service programmes or an MHP-enabled set-top box that allows them to access both the increased number of television services programmes as well as the interactive services. However, MHP-enabled set-top boxes make up only 5% of all set-top boxes currently purchased.
So as to encourage viewers to buy MHP-enabled set-top boxes, the Italian government has provided households with a subsidy towards the purchase of their interactive set-top boxes. While this subsidy can be used for any open platform interactive boxes, such as those used to receive TV via fibre optic broadband services, it has encouraged the purchase of MHP-enabled set-top boxes. It is estimated that 1.5 million MHP-enabled set-top boxes have already been purchased since February 2004. In addition, the decrease in subsidy from €150 (~US$190 ~£102) in 2004 to €70 (~US$95 ~£51) in 2005 reflects the drop in price for MHP-enabled set-top boxes following their massive uptake.
The consumption of MHP-enabled set-top boxes has kick started the economies of scale for their manufacture. The marginal cost difference for an MHP-enabled set-top box and a zapper set-top box is now much reduced. By adopting this strategy, the Italian government has successfully prevented its market from being flooded with simple zapper set-top boxes.
It has been assumed that many consumers will invariably prefer the cheaper zapper set-top box to a more expensive MHP-enabled set-top box. However, this reasoning disregards the type of interactive services offered. For example, should viewers find interactive services compelling and easy to use, they may be willing to spend the extra money necessary for an interactive set-top box. Thus, it would seem that consumer education is key to the successful roll-out of interactive services.
Much will depend on the role and importance attributed to interactive services. Should governments wish to promote t-government services, it is necessary to encourage households to purchase an interactive set-top box. Broadcasters may use interactive services as a means to increase their revenue and as a result invest funds in the development of appealing content. The priorities of content developers, broadcasters and governments will impact the successful roll-out of interactive services and likely lead to variations between markets.
Natalie Mouyal, works for Digitag
Xbox 360, Microsoft’s successor to their popular Xbox gaming console, will be “unleashed” tonight at a celebrity-packed launch broadcast on MTV, which shows at 8pm in the UK. It was launched on US MTV last night.
The Xbox will ship with a 12X dual-layer DVD-ROM drive – supporting progressive-scan DVD movies and a host of DVD and CD formats – three USB 2.0 ports, two memory unit slots and support for four wireless game controllers.
“Xbox 360 marks the beginning of a renaissance in video games,” whooped Don Mattrick, president of Worldwide Studios for Electronic Arts. “The unbelievable Xbox 360 games in development at Electronic Arts will accelerate the industry’s mission to make video games the pre-eminent form of all entertainment.”
Naturally, gamers love to customise their experience, so there’s a camera option to let vain players add their mugshots into games or even see their friends onscreen as they frag them to an inch of their worthless lives.
Xbox 360 players can also access recorded TV and digital movies, music, video and photos stored on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005-based PCs through any Xbox 360 system in the house.
Telewest Broadband today announced plans to transform its TV service, giving consumers greater access and control over additional digital programmes.
There will also be a mix of free and subscription services including popular TV series, music videos and niche content.
Eric Tveter, president and chief operating officer at Telewest sunk deeper into his deluxe executive chair and glossed: “We are transforming TV as we know it by giving consumers both a superb choice of programmes and the flexibility to watch them whenever they want. We don’t ever want to hear our customers say there’s nothing on the box or that they have missed their favourite programme.”
NTL Broadcast and O2 have revealed the first batch of channels to be part of their forthcoming mobile TV trial in the Oxford area, announcing an initial 16 channels including Cartoon Network, CNN, Discovery Channel, Sky Sports News and Sky Travel.
To support the trial, NTL Broadcast is building a new broadcast network of eight DVB-H transmitters to cover 120 square km around Oxford that will enable the lucky participants to receive digital television on the move. To enable a commercial service to be launched in the UK, Ofcom will need to license spectrum and O2 is already lobbying the UK regulator to bring forward plans to distribute radio frequencies for mobile TV services.
In Austria, a DTT trial with MHP-based interactive services provided 150 households in Graz with access to an interactive television service called !TV4 using the telephone connection for the return channel. Using their television remote control, viewers could retrieve information services and vote. Given the success of the trial, it is likely that MHP-based interactive services will be launched alongside DTT services.
Of course MHP is not the only interactive television service system in the market. Proprietary systems such as MediaHighway and OpenTV have been installed in a large number of set-top boxes, often for cable and satellite platforms. In the United Kingdom, the MHEG standard is widely used on the terrestrial platform. As a result of the various products and services in the market, the DVB Project has been working on the development of the Portable Content Format (PCF) to deliver a wide range of interactive television services to multiple platforms with a minimum of re-authoring. It has significant interest for operators who wish to migrate towards MHP by allowing them to manage simultaneously a mixed population of devices.
Broadband is taking off everywhere, speeds are increasing and everybody’s happy. Well almost. Broadband isn’t available to all, especially those in more rural areas.
Other approaches to HAP involve lightweight aircraft, such as the European-funded Capanina project.
With a manly backslap, Intel and Sprint have announced that they will work together to advance development of the 802.16e WiMAX standard.
In case that sounded too simple, here’s Oliver Valente, CTO and VP of technology development for Sprint, to baffle you with a buzzword remix: “Our relationship with Intel will help validate requirements, drive key ecosystem development needs, formulate network strategies and define the potential for advanced wireless services adoption”.
Sean Maloney, another executive with an impossibly long job description (“executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Mobility Group”) added: “WiMAX technology has the promise to deliver new broadband services to consumers globally.”
This has Friday Story written all over it. A few Israeli geeks set up a test to compare the speed of delivering data via pigeon (PEI – Pigeon Enabled Internet, as they’ve labelled it) compared with ADSL.
As you know, the A in ADSL stands for Asynchronous, so the transferred rates listed equate to the speed that information is received. Upload rates are significantly lower. By their calculations, uploading 4Gb of data on ADSL would take around 96 hours – making the pigeon transfer significantly more efficient, equivalent to a T1 connection at 1.5Mbps.
Chat around the office lead us to wonder what the next in the endless list of variation on creatures being used to transfer information would be. Nicolas Nova has provided the answer – 
BT Rich Media has cuddled up to Sportfive, a French sports marketing group, and announced a partnership to make 2006 Football World Cup qualifying and friendly games available to fans streamed over broadband on the Internet.
Football bonkers viewers will be able to choose between 250Kbps or 500Kbps quality streams for approximately £7 (~US$13 ~€10), or alternatively download the entire match to keep forever for around £5 (~US$9.50 ~€7). As a long suffering Wales fan, I have to admit that there’s several games which I never wish to see again!
The games will be served up on http://www.qualifiers2006.com and promoted to over 10 million users via a range of affiliate sites such as soccernet.com,.teamtalk.com, sportinglife.com and rivals.net .
AbbiTalk, a West Sussex-based provider of Voice Over IP (VoIP) telephony services, is talking tough about its cut-rate broadband call packages, that offer customers extra telephone lines with discount local and UK call charges and no line rental.
Prices start at £149 for “AbbiTalkBasicOne”, which provides one extra phone line, a unique number with Pre Pay phone account, an adaptor and a DECT digital cordless phone with digital answering machine.
No line rental is charged and there’s no need to use a computer to make the calls as these are accomplished through the standard cordless handsets.