Euromedia July August 2013 | Page 30

ericsson_ericsson layout 12/07/2013 17:22 Page 1 he multi-screen TV reality has arrived. The emergence of new connected devices is continuously transforming the way consumers discover, create, consume and share content, producing increasingly mobile and personalised user experiences. They are rapidly finding new methods to integrate TV and video into their social and personal lifestyles. ‘TV Anywhere’ and on-demand services continue to burst onto the mass market. Smartphones, digital tablets, PCs and other connected devices are quickly becoming the ‘device of choice’ in today’s consumer TV experience. We predict that by 2020 there will be 50 billion connected devices across the globe, and of those 50 billion devices, 15 billion are expected to be video enabled. This opens up huge possibilities for everyone in the industry but also puts looming expectations on content and networks. The greatest boom in mobile devices occurring today is with smartphone sales. Half of all mobile phones sold in the first quarter of 2013 were smartphones. These devices (along with PCs and tablets) are contributing greatly to the burgeoning growth of video as the dominator of traffic over networks. Consumers are fully embracing mobile broadband and enjoying data-heavy video and other multimedia content with their smartphones and tablets. According to Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report research, mobile broadband subscriptions are projected to spike to 6.5 billion worldwide by the year 2018, a significant jump from 1.5 billion in 2012. Video traffic is already driving some networks to their bandwidth limits, and this traffic is expected to grow at a rate of 60 percent annually by the end of 2018. These findings point to a distinct transition period in the industry, which is evidenced by the ubiquitous use of mobile devices with varying screen sizes to access T video content, coupled with the strong demand to have that content available at any time and any location. Video consumers want to be in full control of when and how their content is being viewed. On the horizon: An all-IP networked society At Ericsson, we have a clear vision of the future, one enabled by mobile broadband IP networks, connected devices and cloud services. We call this the ‘Networked Society’, which means that anything that benefits from being connected will indeed be connected, shaping lives, society and industries and of course, TV and entertainment. With the growth of mobile devices comes the drive for greater efficiency, higher quality, and smarter content delivery. This pressures broadcasters, mobile network operators, and service providers to re-evaluate their existing networks. But it doesn’t affect the needs of consumers, who just want to receive high quality, relevant video content, which blends seamlessly into their everyday lives. Through Ericsson’s latest ConsumerLab research into TV consumer behaviours, based on the views of more than 460 million consumers in 12 different countries around the globe, we found that the proportion of unicast traffic is significantly increasing. Unlike typical broadcast, a unicast platform brings advanced personalised services to the user — offering an almost unlimited selection of content and an almost unlimited number of ways to consume that content. This speaks directly to the growing trend with consumers wanting to access specific, individualised content rather than the standard pre-packaged television that has been traditionally offered to them. Streaming services that deliver individual video content on demand as well as mobile TV on demand are highly favoured applications with today’s consumers. Over-the-top services such as Netflix and HULU have significant impact on the way today’s consumer watches TV, and online devices (PC, smartphone, tablets and others) have a strong influence on what consumers now expect of their traditional TV services. The computer and Internet are now natural extensions and complements to the way video content and TV is being viewed. More often than not consumers are asking ‘what do I feel like watching right now?’ rather than ‘what’s on TV right now?’ Even further they are asking ‘what are my friends watching right now’ This freedom of choice points to the inflexibility of traditional TV packages that provide more bundled and less flexible options. Traditional ‘curation’ of content will, in time, give way to ‘recommended’ content that is tightly coupled with social networking. This is a key trend with a significant impact on the industry, and Ericsson predicts that by the year 2020, an all-IP network for both broadcasters and mobile network operators will become the new working platform, emerging as the rule rather than the exception. With billions of IP-enabled devices already on the market and growing, there will be an explosion of video traffic being delivered over an IP network. Adopting an IP network: A promising business opportunity for broadcasters and MNOs The first major IP platform to be widely deployed used the IPv4 standard. Currently, most people have at least one IP address attached to their names, but that number is growing rapidly and putting strains on the IPv4 platform, which still carries the vast majority of Internet traffic. The industry, for example, has been focusing on building IPv6 support for quite some time (Google and Facebook are available both on IPv4 and IPv6), as IPv4 simply wasn’t designed to support the widespread growth of today’s web traffic and proliferation of connected devices. But broadcasters and operators also need IPv6, which requires careful planning and the Unifying the TV Anywhere experience through the convergence of IP, by David Price, head of TV business development, Ericsson 30 EUROMEDIA