How to integrate satellite video with landline VOD

Where terrestrial triple-play services are not economical (in rural areas, for example), the lingering question for telcos becomes: How can they seamlessly integrate a partner’s satellite TV service with their own terrestrial services such as video-on-demand (VOD)?

Following the lead of AT&T’s HomeZone offering, Qwest Communications, Embarq and Windstream (to name a few) have all expressed interest in combining wireline VOD with satellite TV to serve sparsely populated areas. But the approach requires seamless integration on the customer’s end in order to work. And that’s no small task.

“It is not that the service provider is off the hook from maintaining more quality of service in terms of the broadband it provides, but they’ve got to count on someone else, too, to make sure their service is going to meet the potential demand that is going to come from their customer base,” said Teresa Mastrangelo, principal analyst with broadbandtrends.com, adding that this adds the challenge of marketing the service so that customers understand how it works and the benefits it brings.

That being said, consumers may not know or care how their TV services are delivered. Regardless, they won’t compromise for a service that is not seamless. One remote, one electronic programming guide (EPG), one customer service number, one bill and of course, one set-top box (STB) are the top requirements for customers and the biggest challenge for the service provider.

“Everything should be accessible from the same portal and same remote,” Mastrangelo said. “It should be something that they can, on a menu, simply select the service and off you go. I think that’s got to be the first thing -- it’s got to be just unbelievably easy to use. If there is a payment scheme where they are renting a video or using a third-party on-demand service they have to pay for on a per-use basis, that video aspect has to be tied together so the customer is being billed through their billing operator and not this third party. If they have problems with it, whom do they contact? They should be able to contact the main service provider.”

An integrated solution requires a hybrid STB, much more common fare in Europe than in the U.S. According to Mastrangelo, vendors that have the capability to integrate satellite TV with broadband VOD include Motorola, Cisco, Entone, Pace Micro, Sagem, Telsey, Thomson, ADB, Tilgin and DGL2. Residential gateway company 2Wire already has the edge in the U.S.

2Wire provides the residential gateway, backend management system and customer care for AT&T’s HomeZone. The advantage the hybrid STB offers is that, through progressive download of on-demand content, movies requested by the consumer can begin in approximately seven seconds--much quicker than a linear model, according to 2Wire. Furthermore, there is a far greater catalogue in the Internet VOD world than the linear world because it takes up bandwidth only when you are downloading one of those movies, said Jonathon Symonds, vice president of product marketing at 2Wire.

The process, typically done past the headend level in an operator’s network, couples a linear video feed and a TV software stack, EPG, DVR and broadband services. According to Symonds, every night, the backend management system transacts with content providers – Akimbo and Movie Link in the case of AT&T – to deliver a current catalogue of movies and on-demand content to 2Wire, which then aggregates and masses the content from various providers into a common format and single catalogue to the STB. That catalogue is then displayed on the consumer’s EPG, divided by movie genre, release date or however the operator chooses to design the interface. The user can select any number of those titles and download them directly to their box. The download will remain accessible, depending on what the rights owner requires, 30 days or more on the consumer’s hard drive.

(continued on next page)