 "Ericsson India bets big in TV and media, announces new wins")
In an era of ever faster convergence, Ericsson India, already a major player in video compression solutions for satellite broadcast and DTH has announced new wins and a deeper focus on the TV and media space. At Ericsson ‘Television Next’, a new thought leadership platform for the TV ad media industry in Mumbai today, Ericsson announced plans to strengthen its TV & Media business with an expanded product portfolio.
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The telecom giant, which counts four out of the seven Indian DTH operators as its customers for video compression technology, and which offers Media Delivery Network (MDN) services in India, will now offer an expanded bouquet of seven new business/service areas to Indian broadcasters, DTH players, content providers and telecom operators. Ericsson is drawing on its strengths and experience from the media and IP worlds to drive the future of TV, and this expanded portfolio includes OSS/BSS, Prime Integration Services, OTT Platforms, Middleware and DRM as well as Cloud DVR.
Chris Houghton, Head of Region India for Ericsson said, “The TV & broadcast industry in India is undergoing dramatic changes with the transition to multi-platform, on-demand television. Our global scale, our services offering, cutting-edge portfolio, and industry knowledge position us as a leading enablement partner for our customers globally. We foresee a strong growth in the TV & Media space in India and expect to achieve a 15% market share in India by the year 2017.”
Ericsson also announced new wins with Tata Sky and Sun TV for the deployment of its AVP 4000 video compression platform that it claims will enhance the TV viewing experience of customers. The new technology from Ericsson will power all 33 Sun TV channels broadcast in India. Tata Sky has upgraded and expanded its entire DTH platform to Ericsson’s AVP 4000 video compression system, which Tata Sky says will substantially increase the bouquet of channels offered to subscribers. In March this year, Ericsson had enabled Tata Sky to launch the first commercial 4K video service (four times the resolution of standard HD or high definition) in the Indian subcontinent. The AVP 4000 System Encoder is designed to overcome bandwidth and delivery constraints common in India today.
Asked about how cable TV Multi System Operators (MSOs) could leverage such technologies considering that far more Indians watch television over cable TV as opposed to DTH, Vineet Somakumar, Head of TV & Media Practice at Ericsson India said that Ericsson sees big opportunities in the cable MSO space too as players move from analogue to digital, with the transition set for completion sometime next year across India. He explained that theoretically the cable TV co-axial cable that enters homes can deliver up to 4 GB of bandwidth and potential is huge for cable MSOs to offer a whole new world of cutting-edge services.
Ericsson has predicted in the past that total mobile video traffic over the next six years (2015-2020) will be more than 17 times that of the last six (2009-2014). According to the company, the scene is now set for entertainment and communications providers to offer game-changing services that would launch viewers into a new age of entertainment.
