Euromedia May | Page 30

exset_exset 09/05/2014 18:44 Page 1 any people will know about the Digital Divide, the gap between those who have the ability, or economic wherewithal, to take advantage of the information age via appropriate technology and those that don’t. Increasingly across the developed world we’re reliant upon the Internet for many things: within a very short space of time we’ve built access to that information and those services into our daily lives. But Internet or, more broadly, information access – a vital tool in M Andrew Pons, director of marketing, Exset, explains how his company’s business and technology model makes pay-TV self-financing without depending exclusively on subscriber fees for revenue. service creation, facilitating digital television platforms that can be monetised where previously virtually impossible. This allows populations to benefit from new information and entertainment services while operators and governments, when partnering with Exset, monetise digital switchover and assist in bringing about social transformation. DMS Exset’s DMS is a unique business and technology model that makes TV selffinancing in challenging markets without depending exclusively on subscriber fees for Monetising digital switchover in emerging markets education, health and democracy, to name but a few – is far from equal around the world. Access to entertainment services too is limited by network reach and terminal equipment availability. If we look at smartphone penetration, a default tool for Internet access, then the differences expose the issue: three per cent adult ownership in Pakistan in 2013, according to Pew Research Center, while the US is at 55 per cent. At the same time, according to a report from Dataxis Intelligence, television penetration across one of the key emerging regions of the world – Africa – is set to reach 50 per cent by 2015, or 123 million television households. A report from Digital TV adds that by 2017 there will be 50m TV households in Sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile across Asia digital terrestrial TV networks (DVB-T2) are being deployed while cable networks aim for digital trans