BROADBAND COMMUNITIES is the leading source of information on digital and broadband technologies for buildings and communities. Our editorial aims to accelerate the deployment of Fiber-To-The-Home and Fiber-To-The-Premises.
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BROADBAND APPS their customers are getting. Today, when a customer asks for a refund because a video feed failed in the middle of a football game, an operator can't say, 'No, that isn't true.' With session tracking, the operator will have a record of the customer's experience. "We can tell the operations folks, 'Now you're back in control,'" says Potter. Edgeware: Cooperation With Over-the-Top Providers Edgeware began deploying TV Everywhere systems several years ago. Today, in addition to helping operators deliver their own pay-TV services to second screens, it helps them ofer content delivery network services to third-party providers. "Tat puts operators in a somewhat better mood," says Joachim Roos, Edgeware's founder and CEO. "Tey don't have to see over-the-top providers only as the enemy. Operators still have to pay for scaling up their infrastructure, as well as for peering or transit – and that's not a pretty picture – but on the other hand, they have the ability to attract some services and make some money." For example, some Edgeware customers now ofer foreign TV channels via the Internet that are not included in their pay-TV services. Some other Edgeware customers begin their multiscreen services at the small-screen end. For example, a telco may be interested in providing video services but may hesitate to invest in building out video infrastructure without proving the business case. If it fnds that demand exists, it can expand to ofer more traditional pay-TV services. Roos explains, "Tey can decide what the mix is as they go along and provision the infrastructure to do more multiscreen or more traditional delivery." According to Roos, operators purchase Edgeware's products so they can provide online video with high quality of service. Some early multiscreen eforts had poor service quality, and customers were unimpressed. To be viable, a service ofering must guarantee a level of quality that consumers fnd acceptable. Consumers expect that over-the-top content, if it comes from a pay-TV provider, will look like pay TV. "It needs to be good quality, or the subscriber will go somewhere else," Roos says. "Tat's so much easier to do in the OTT world." Small operators, in particular, are in a bind when it comes to operating video services. Tey don't have the economies of scale to spread their infrastructure costs over huge subscriber bases, and their content acquisition costs are extremely high; competing against global content providers such as Netfix is next to impossible. In this situation, an operator may be best of distributing content from third-party providers: It can provide more diverse content to subscribers and at the same time charge content providers to reach its subscribers with high-quality video. Operators need an integrated solution that supports multiple services without replicating infrastructure, according to Roos; in addition, he says, they need sophisticated analytic and reporting capabilities so they can charge broadcasters and over-the-top providers for delivering video at agreed-upon quality levels to targeted audiences. "Analytics are the way to diferentiate the product," Roos concludes. v Masha Zager is the editor of BroadBand Communities. You can reach her at masha@bbcmag.com. 122 | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013