 | Issue: | EMEA 2012 |
| Article no.: | 10 | |
| Topic: | Changing TV consumption models | |
| Author: | Dominic Elliott | |
| Title: | CTO | |
| Organisation: | Cisco | |
| PDF size: | 254KB |
About author
Dominic Elliott is Cisco’s UK CTO for Service Provider, Broadcast and Media. Mr Elliott has been working in the telecoms industry since 1988, working in design, operations and latterly sales on some of the world’s biggest and most complex networks. He has been working at Cisco since 1997, holding a variety of technical roles and was responsible for the design and deployment of the Cisco elements of the BT Dial, Broadband and Core IP solutions, culminating in the role of Chief Architect for the Cisco provision of the BT 21cn project.
Having worked on IP NGN deployments across the world with challengers and incumbents, Dominic Elliott is currently Chief Technology Officer for Cisco UK Service Providers.
Article abstract
Several factors, seemingly insignificant, amount to a major change in TV consumption. PC viewing is shifting from short-form on to long-form video. Mobile content is growing fast. TVs are now Internet enabled and the Cloud provides access to content, anywhere, anytime, on any device. Google TV and Apple TV launched last year, truly signal the Internet TV era. Consumers now expect time-shifting and on-demand viewing and interactive social-TV. However, only the Telco can deliver full range of cloud-based media and applications across multiple screens with consistent, high-quality experience. Therefore, despite challenges and OTT competition, there is a great opportunity for carriers.
Full Article
Today’s media marketplace has entered the age of ‘More’- more video-capable devices, more video services, and more video traffic than ever before. All of these new devices and services are accelerating growth in Internet video traffic. For example, at peak times, Netflix already accounts for 20 per cent of downstream internet traffic in the United States.
A recent industry survey, which focuses on analysing Internet Protocol (IP) networking growth and trends worldwide found that by 2016, annual global IP traffic is forecast to be 1.3 zettabytes – a zettabyte is equal to a sextillion bytes, or a trillion gigabytes. The projected increase of global IP traffic between 2015 and 2016 alone is more than 330 exabytes, which is almost equal to the total amount of global IP traffic generated in 2011 (369 exabytes).
The changing landscape
These three trends – more devices, more online video services and more internet video traffic – are changing the media delivery landscape as we know it, presenting new and pressing challenges for service providers.
Service providers need to differentiate their offerings by delivering more personal, social, and interactive media experiences. By doing so, they make media simpler and more intuitive compared to video services today, which are fragmented across devices, screens, and interfaces.
Another element service providers need to contend with is the demand for mobility in every media service. They need to serve millions of new, unmanaged IP-connected devices efficiently whilst preserving the value of their content, and delivering to new screens and platforms.
Creating a compelling consumption experience
In a business and consumer context, there has been a considerable shift in Video from short-form to long-form viewing on PC, mobile devices and Internet Enabled TVs. The opportunity this represents is to create a more compelling consumption experience, which will drive customer loyalty and provide opportunities to monetize service through greater levels of personalisation and more targeted advertising.
This opportunity is countered by an increasing demand for capacity on the broadband network. The challenge for service providers is to meet this capacity growth whilst maintaining a sustainable cost base. As high-definition quality and mobility become more important, the service provider network becomes the ideal nexus between consumers, content providers, and web applications. Only the Service Provider – and the Service Provider network – can deliver the full range of cloud-based media and applications across multiple screens as part of a consistent, high-quality experience.
Digital media
It is important to make media consumption simpler and more intuitive.Digital Media is driving changes in the market from the content producer through the network to the end subscriber. The opportunity to leverage these changes presents service providers with a means to reduce churn and increase ARPU (average revenue per user) associated with their service offerings. By embracing the new trends in this market, the Service Provider can mitigate the impact on the core bandwidth of these new services.
The impact of Cloud TV Services
In 2012, The Cloud will pose significant challenges, but also presents a tremendous opportunity for service providers. As high-definition quality and mobility become more important, the service provider network becomes an increasingly relevant link between consumer and content. Consumers increasingly want to consume content in theirown way, be it in the living room, playroom, on the train or any other forms oftravelling.
We are now seeing examples of how the content being viewed is retained in the cloud and the consumer can pick up and interact with that content wherever and whenever they have connectivity. Beyond this lies the ability for the Service Providers to provide services where all of the intelligence is in the cloud, allowing the end user to record multiple channels without any hardware constraint, consume this content and share it through social media platforms.The Global Data Centre traffic is expected to quadruple from 2010 to 2015 to 4.8 ZB (zetabytes), and Cloud specifically is expected to increase twelve-fold during this period.
The journey to a full cloud-enabled infrastructure will not happen overnight. Service Providers have extensive client, network, and back-office investments in place, and cannot simply overhaul the entire infrastructure. That is why migration to the cloud should be considered as an evolution, not a replacement of your network – with each new element providing new revenue-generating capabilities right away, while serving as a foundation for more advanced cloud capabilities in the future.A growing number of products power ‘video in the cloud’ experiences by bringing live and on demand video together, offering a consistent look and feel across devices whether it’s a PC, MAC, iPad, iPhone or Android device.
It is important for vendors to lead Service Providers through the migration, with a unique open software platform, providing a path to an all-IPbased video infrastructure. Service Providers can now provide their consumers the ability to move, pause and resume video content on any device, following them whenever they go. Many Service Providers are evaluating how to send live and cloud-based video content to a range of managed and unmanaged devices in and out of the home.
Effective use of the cloud will allow service providers fund major service upgrades to keep pace with the massive growth in IP video traffic, whilst contending with the demand for mobility in every media service.
Scalable solutions for video growth
As video grows to consume 62 per cent of all consumer Internet traffic by 2015, service providers need to fortify the network to accommodate this projected 17-fold growth. Solutions should provide a highly resilient IP transport network that can efficiently deliver video on these massive scales. This combines embedded video intelligence with exceptional scale, performance, lossless transport, and nonstop availability to provide immersive media experiences.
As a result, you can ensure a consistent subscriber experience over multiple endpoints, simplify operation with hitless switchover and inline video monitoring and most importantly reduce total cost of ownership through efficient service multiplexing (video, voice, data, and mobility).
Business models in flux
Technological innovation is accelerating, as evidenced by HD flat-screens, 3D TV, and smartphones entering the mainstream in a matter of months rather than years. Consumer behaviour is evolving, illustrated by the move toward time-shifted and catch up TV services. This however does not sound the death knell for live and broadcast TV. The rise of social TV and interactivity within content will drive greater engagement with the live TV experience. The business model is changing as the complex, interdependent business models supporting the TV industry face pressure to adapt to the Internet age. This pressure is increasing as new and old players explore novel ways to monetize online content.
A topical example is the launch of Google TV in the UK. Users can use Google TV across devices, so you can rent and start watching a movie on your Google TV, keep watching on your tablet on the move, and finish watching on Google TV.
The arrival of Google TV, coupled with Apple TV last year truly signals how Internet TV has moved beyond streaming movies and TV shows from your desktop or laptop. These services enhance the traditional viewing methods by combining movies and TV episodes on demand, thousands of YouTube channels and apps.
The current rate of change in technology, consumer behaviour, and the business model will accelerate our vision of the future of TV, bringing enormous changes in the next five to ten years. While any one of these drivers in isolation would not be a catalyst for appreciable change, in combination they are unleashing forces that will dramaticallyalter the entertainment landscape- permanently.
