coverstory2_cover story 28/11/2013 16:55 Page 6
Euromedia: What other challenges are on
the horizon?
ADB: Putting the smart into homes. As we
start to roll out smart home services, the
challenge will be how to integrate all of these
disparate information streams and make use
of them in an intelligent way.
Agama: One challenge is certainly the
device and delivery fragmentation. There are
many different types of devices and device
configurations out on the market. The
difference in lifecycle between a mobile
device and a traditional STB is also a source
of complexity. This, combined with the lack
of transparency that these environments
typically have, can seriously hamper the
operators’ speed of rollout and innovation.
And, with users consuming video through
mobile networks an additional dynamic
comes into play. There is, however, an
opportunity for operators to regain more
control by realising that transparency starts
in the app. By instrumenting the video app,
an operator can get vital insights into service
quality and the customer experience, and
then leverage that to enhance revenue and
customer satisfaction.
Bridge: Delivery is becoming more and
more packet-based, and traditional platforms
are relied on for a decreasing proportion of
the total. Operators need to make sure that
their monitoring systems keep pace with
these changes, or risk a decline in service
quality.
DTVL: We see the introduction of HbbTV
2.0, CI+1.4 and cloud-based technologies
creating a situation where broadcasters and
operators, including IPTV networks, can
offer a much enriched and interactive user
experience to their viewers and customers,
potentially in a set-top-box-less world using
only the consumer’s TV. Conversely, some
operators are likely to deploy powerful media
home gateways to customer premises to
provide value added services to differentiate
and to increasingly ‘own’ the consumers
online and media experiences. For this, cross
technology interoperability will become a
major hurdle to overcome.
A common challenge that both camps face
will centre on developing suitable, user
friendly applications that utilise the
technologies deployed. Testing and
monitoring such deployments, in both
vertical and horizontal markets will add to
development cost and time, and neglecting to
put in place adequate measures will result in
churn and loss of market share, either in
absolute customer subscriptions or
viewership.
Edgeware: Many service providers are
working to offer cloud or network DVR
services in order to remove the cost and
inconvenience of hard disks in bulky STBs.
Enabling new, up-to-date adverts to be
inserted dynamically into each stream when
combination of HD video content and
surrounding services such as social media
and advertising, the challenge of capturing,
analysing and reporting on the service
“As we start to roll out smart home services, the
challenge will be how to integrate all of these
disparate information streams and make use of
them in an intelligent way.”
a consumer views a previous recording is a
killer app and possibly the key to justifying
new content rights – especially if the advert
can be tailored to a defined group or even an
individual. Monitoring and reporting viewing
rates including the delivered quality will be
the key to monetising these new adverts.
Farncombe: Security is often overlooked –
if a solution hasn’t been designed with
security in mind then it becomes more
difficult to add security later in the
development lifecycle. Rights holders quite
correctly want to know that their content is
protected using the best tools and processes
that are currently available.
The cloud provides a great means to
launch a service quickly and cost effectively.
But a service provider still has to oversee the
cloud provider, ensure that they understand
the economics and scalability of the service
being used so that when a service is
transitioned to a different level of cloud
provision it will happen as expected and in
the right timeframe.
JDSU: Achieving ‘actionable’ is one. With
the breadth of our portfolio, we often have
instruments, probes, and software
intelligence at virtually every point in our
customer’s network. Those devices yield all
this great data - our challenge now is
processing it to get meaningful insights.
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