A roundup of vendor and operator news from around the globe. Today's edition includes Asia Pacific, the Middle East, western Europe and Africa.
APAC
Rethink Technology Research forecasts that subscription revenues for OTT video subscribers across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region will reach $10 billion by 2021 from $6.5 billion today, reaching 200 million subscribers, twice that of 2016. Pure-play SVoD services are expected to dominate (at $6.29 billion) ahead of operator supplied services.
APAC markets vary with broadband penetration above 50%, in some regions and below 10% in others.
China is expected to make up 60% of SVoD revenue by 2021, but is low today, dominated by AVoD, with SVoD just introduced. India is in second place behind China by number of OTT subscribers, expected to reach 14.6 million by 2021. Indonesia and Japan are close, with each expected to increase to 9.96 million and 8.1 million by 2021, respectively.
Oman
Adaptrum announced the completion of a pilot deployment of TV white space technology with Oman Broadband in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. The project was intended to demonstrate the ability to provide broadband communications to far flung places in Oman.
TV White Space (TVWS) equipment utilizes vacant channels of the UHF TV broadcast spectrum to deliver broadband wireless services. Because of the low sub-GHz frequency of the spectrum, TVWS technology achieves non-line-of-sight (NLOS) long-range coverage.
In the pilot project, client sites included schools under the Ministry of Education, an Oman Broadband point of presence (POP), and residential villas. It was conducted in the suburbs of the capital, Muscat city, with hilly terrain and scattered buildings in between the links. The trial provided up to 20 Mbps over distances of 4 to 10+ kilometers.
Singapore
Alticast will demonstrate a new turnkey platform intended to expedite OTT video services for pay TV and content providers at the Broadcast Asia Exhibition & Conference May 23-25 in Singapore.
The Alticast solution combines business intelligence, publishing and content protection systems into a single solution for management and delivery of multiscreen video. It incorporates a variety of headend modules for UltraD content protection and diverse license management, multi-DRM protection, a business intelligence system and publishing resources.
The company will also show a new TV user interface (UI) with voice assistant, advertising and statistics solutions, and device software.
Switzerland
Swiss cable operator Quickline has launched a new service powered by Broadpeak solutions. Quickline TV Service provides IPTV and OTT subscribers with more than 400 channels of live and on-demand content, including cloud PVR. The multiscreen deployment includes Broadpeak's BkS300, BkS400, and BkS100 video servers; BkM100 CDN manager; and BkA100 video delivery analytics.
The Quickline Group is associated with 25 independent cable operators that make up the Quickline network, providing services to some 400,000 households in the Swiss cable network market.
Singapore
ATX is highlighting several new product offerings at BroadcastAsia, including optical transport, 1.2 GHz RF management and an IP-to-PAL video headend, with a particular focus on DOCSIS 3.1 compatibility.
South Africa
SmarDTV, a Kudelski Group (SIX:KUD.S) company, announced that its third generation System-In-Package (SIP) technology was selected by Altech UEC, a provider of set-top box technologies with manufacturing facilities in Durban, South Africa, to provide the local retail market with a new HD set-top box for OpenView HD, a South African free-to-air digital satellite TV platform.
The SIP technology is designed to facilitate local manufacturing, with all key elements such as security assets and user interface requirements, pre-integrated within the SIP silicon. SmarDTV has deployed more than 5 million of its SIP technology products in Latin America, Asia and Africa.
