cisco_cisco 31/10/2014 16:16 Page 2
COMPANY CONTRIBUTION
“Keeping the cost of the STB down is paramount.”
cardless and stripped back to just the functions
and features the client really needs.
So, at the moment there is a blend of highprice pay-TV, lower cost propositions, and then
the vast majority of the market served with
FTV. We think there is a big opportunity ahead
for occasional use pay-TV. It is the classic
model for the African economy; a street vendor
buys a pack of 20 cigarettes and then sells
them one at a time, viewers would purchase
programmes and TV events the same way. We
see the same model in the mobile phone
market where pre-pay vouchers are routinely
sold for as little as five cents US and a $1 prepayment is the most you can buy for some
networks. We see a big gap for pay-per-view on
top of FTV packages.
Unlike in some parts of the world the
micro-transaction system needed is already at
hand. Everyone knows
Africa is a big mobile
economy, leapfrogging
other markets because
there is no legacy
infrastructure. And the
mobile is perfect for
payments for occasional
use as payment by
mobile is very well
established; if
Safaricom’s MPesa
payments system was a
bank then, by the
number of transactions handled, it would be
the biggest in Kenya.
Although some may suggest there is
“The telcos certainly want in.”
not a strong case for Mobile TV over LTE until
the migration is finished, it is rather that highdemand linear services over OTT are not
feasible as there is not enough