Parks Associates supports Future TV Advertising Forum, London

Parks Associates is supporting Future TV Advertising Forum from December 2-3 in London.

The Future TV Advertising conference will bring together broadcast and advertising to analyze and debate the evolution of TV advertising. Television is inexorably losing ground to online that is gradually offering greater accountability. The conference will address how the advertising community can work with broadcast so that this threat, embodied by new technologies and user behavior, becomes an opportunity. The event will provide a great opportunity to hear and network with key stakeholders in TV advertising: Brands, Media Holding Companies, leading European Cable, Satellite, IPTV, Pay-TV providers and Content Owners.

More more information, visit http://www.futuretvads.com/.

EU TV Markets: Progress of IPTV, VOD, DTT services

The Western European market for television service features a diverse set of offerings and regulations across nations. Terrestrial services are a common choice among consumers in all nations, but IPTV is making inroads in some areas, with France in particular serving as a worldwide leader in IPTV growth. The following is a brief overview of several key countries, with information and data from Parks Associates' recent report Television Services: Global Outlook (Second Edition).

The upcoming executive summit CONNECTIONS Europe™, November 15-16 in Amsterdam, will feature multiple sessions focused on advanced TV services and devices, including "Consumers and Connected Consumer Electronics," "Bringing the Content: Content Delivery and Control for Connected TVs," "Extending the Video Experience to Multiple Screens," and "Value-added Services & the Video Ecosystem." Register Today at www.connectionseurope.com.

To read more about the EU TV Markets: Progress of IPTV, VOD, DTT services, subscribe to Parks Associates' European Research Update Newsletter.

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Calix to acquire Occam Networks

Calix, Inc. and Occam Networks, Inc. announced that the companies have entered into a definitive agreement for Calix to acquire Occam Networks in a stock and cash transaction valued at approximately $171 million.

The combined organization of Calix and Occam Networks is expected to provide communications service providers across North America, the Caribbean, Latin America, and select global markets with an enhanced portfolio of advanced broadband access systems, and accelerate innovation across the expanded Calix Unified Access portfolio.

The acquisition is expected to result in more access options over both fiber and copper for communications service providers to deploy, which could expedite the proliferation of advanced broadband services to both residential and business subscribers, including such services as high-speed Internet, IPTV, VOIP, Ethernet business services, and other advanced broadband applications.

State of the Worldwide Digital Television Market

The global market for television services continues to grow despite persistent economic challenges throughout the world. Most of this growth is occurring in digital technologies, with digital terrestrial and cable services supplanting their analog counterparts while IPTV providers fight to increase their piece of the television services pie.

Increased awareness of what is possible on the TV has driven consumer interest in these services, and competition has caused many providers around the globe to evaluate and introduce advanced TV features that leverage digital technologies. Companies in developed nations, including North America and Europe, are rolling out on-demand, interactive, and time/place-shifting offerings. Several providers in emerging markets, such as China and India, are working on digitalization of their services, and they are exploring the new features made possible by this technological shift.

To read more about the State of the Worldwide Digital Television Market, subscribe to Parks Associates' European Research Update Newsletter.

Click here to subscribe to other Parks Associates complimentary newsletters.

Latin America economic progress & tech innovations driving TV-services growth

Television services in Latin America will grow by double digits over the next five years, outpacing service growth in Asia and other emerging markets.

The report, Television Services: Global Outlook (2nd Edition) reveals the Latin American region will achieve a cumulative annual growth rate of 10% through 2014, compared to less than two percent in Western Europe and North America. Already major players are seeing better-than-expected results. DirecTV recently tripled its quarterly Latin America subscriber additions, due in part to demand for World Cup coverage.

While Asia and Eastern Europe are exciting emerging markets, Latin America will be the next land of opportunity for television services. Growth in the region and technological innovations, as well as changes in TV service regulations, will help fuel the boom in the area’s consumer television services. Over the next few years, we will see advanced services including IPTV, interactive features, and even 3D TV introduced into these markets.

Telefonica and other telcos are anticipating legal changes in Brazil and Argentina that will allow them to offer television services. Colombia, one of the few countries to allow telcos to provide TV services, has seen increases in competition and service variety as a result, including gaming and other interactive TV features. Parks Associates’ analysts report Net and Telefonica in Brazil and Cablevision in Argentina have demonstrated trials of 3DTV.

This TV Everywhere thing is getting interesting

There are more indications that TV Everywhere is going to mean more than just having programs available on the computer; it's going to encompass many consumer electronics platforms. Take, for instance, the announcement yesterday from Clearleap and RCDb, where a Blu-ray player can receive premium video-on-demand content. Then, look at Cablevision's Tom Rutledge (COO), who indicated that the company is already trialing IPTV applications to bring video to Web-enabled devices such as tablets, smartphones, and - presumably - connected CE devices such as TVs and Blu-ray players.

Mediaroom and related announcements aim IPTV at smaller operators

I had announcements from Alcatel-Lucent and Sigma Designs this week regarding a Mediaroom-enabled solution aimed at smaller operators. The solution is aimed at supporting supporting networks of between 1,000 and 100,000 set-top-boxes. The solution not only provides high-quality television programming, but also enables new consumer media services through the blending and personalization of web and broadcasting content. This new offer, which uses a single equipment rack, supports more than three times as many households than previous versions of the Microsoft Mediaroom-based IPTV solution.

Alcatel-Lucent will be deploying the first instance of its Integrated Solution for Microsoft Mediaroom for Cinergy MetroNet to potentially 50,000 customers in Indiana beginning July 26, 2010. Using the Mediaroom-powered solution, Cinergy MetroNet plans to offer its customers multimedia services such as broadcast TV blended with web content and the ability to simultaneously record multiple shows while watching another.

Sigma Designs has established a new low-cost IPTV platform using the second-generation SMP8652 media processor to support lower-cost IPTV set-top box deployments.

The Role of the Set-Top Box

The set-top box (STB) is the primary point of entry into the digital home for television services, including cable TV, DTH, and IPTV. This device has evolved beyond its historical role as a simple black box sitting on top of a large TV set into a smaller form-factor device supporting a variety of functions, notably interactive television applications. Service providers worldwide are aggressively upgrading their equipment to support the migration away from analog television and toward digital television (DTV), with the hopes of improving consumer satisfaction and creating service differentiators.

In markets with a high penetration of DTV subscriptions, support for advanced features such as VoD, DVR/PVR, and other interactive applications are driving the deployment of digital STBs. Another interesting development has been a resurgence in the concept of a residential gateway (RG), which is a complex device capable of delivering multiple services to the home, including video, data, voice, and wireless. This development seems to set up competing hardware paradigms, with two different form factors expanding their roles, with functional overlap, within the home. Right now, there is no clear industry consensus about whether, and to what extent, STB functions will shift to the residential gateway or vice versa.

To read more about the Role of the Set-Top Boxes, subscribe to Parks Points.

Parks Associates supports IPTV World Forum, London

Parks Associates is supporting the IPTV World Forum from March 23-25 in London.

Stuart Sikes, President, Parks Associates will be hosting the Analyst Breakfast Briefing, "Service Providers and the Digital Home: The Role of Networks, Value-added Services, and Customer Support" on March 25 preceding the keynote presentation.

As broadband and pay television service providers embrace home networking, they face both opportunities and challenges. The home network – delivered through manageable customer premise equipment opens up the opportunity for a service provider to establish a deeper relationship with the customer, expand customer support, and deliver multi-platform value-added services. At the same time, service providers must be prepared to deal with the challenge of increased support calls and technical support requirements. This briefing will provide perspective from Parks Associates primary consumer and industry research, examining the current and future roles of service provider-deployed home networks and related services.

Now in its sixth year, the IPTV World Forum has an established reputation for high-quality and sizeable yet focused audiences - the leading event for multiplatform TV. The IPTV World Forum is the only place to meet all the key decision makers from all the IPTV markets in one place.

For more information about this event, click here.

Parks Associates Supports IPTV World Forum Middle East and Africa

Parks Associates is supporting IPTV World Forum Middle East and Africa from November 15-16 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

IPTV World Forum Middle East and Africa always provide the opportunity to benefit from established local deployments of IPTV and also meet those from further afield, along with other seasoned attendees from the IPTV World Series. This year, the event once again featured the series’ unique operator-centric formula, bringing together local and worldwide IPTV service providers and telcos along with key technology vendors, broadcasters and systems integrators.

For more information, please click here.

Parks Associates supports IPTV World Forum, Eastern Europe

Parks Associates is supporting the IPTV World Forum Eastern Europe in Prague, Czech Republic from October 20th to 21st.

This 2009 event in Prague will continue the IPTV World Forum Series pattern, giving visitors valuable insight into the plans, deployment and expansion strategies, technology choices, business models, marketing approaches and future considerations of many of the region's key players. The operator speakers are helping to make IPTV a reality in Eastern Europe, and they will be joined by a carefully selected group of commentators and experts in various fields of technology, business and content to provide a balanced show that covers the topics that are relevant to this region today.

For more information about this event, click here.

HOMEPNA announces 1st Technology Summit

AT&T, Telefonica, Cisco, Motorola, and TELUS to Present on Leading IPTV Home Networking Standard

The HomePNA Alliance is hosting its first Technology Summit to be held September 30 and October 1, 2009 in Houston Texas. The Summit, which is also being promoted by the FTTH Council, will be co-located with the 2009 FTTH Conference & Expo. The Summit will focus on technical and business insights surrounding HomePNA technology and its role in enabling an advanced digital home experience for end users.

The Summit will feature speakers from among the world's largest service providers, including AT&T, Telefonica, YES, TELUS, Tata Sky and Bell Aliant who will discuss HomePNA's role in creating compelling and competitive home networking and IPTV product portfolios for their respective companies. At the Technology Summit, Cisco, Motorola, CopperGate Communications and other leaders will also give their perspectives on the technology that so many service providers have adopted due to its fast performance and rich features desired by service providers.

Parks Associates is a media sponsor of this event.

For more information, visit www.homepnasummit.com.

Parks Associates sponsors HomePNA Summit, Houston

Parks Associates is a supporting media sponsor for the HomePNA Summit in Houston, Texas. This event is co-located with the FTTH Conference and Expo from September 30 – October 1.

Broadband’s next frontier is within the home. Triple Play, IPTV, Whole-Home DVR, and new smart-home applications are creating endless opportunities for carriers and OEMs to boost profits and customer satisfaction. The HomePNA Summit will feature major carriers and OEMs who will explain ways to deploy best-in-class home networks and MDU solutions while cutting installation times and costs in half. Find out how Tier-1 and Tier-2 service providers have maximized the profitability of IPTV and in-home entertainment networks over existing wires.
Discover best practices from carriers who’ve been there, done that – profitably!

For more information about the HomePNA Summit, visit http://homepnasummit.com.

Broadband Forum to announce midyear IPTV and broadband Stats

The Broadband Forum, a global consortium of approximately 200 member companies dedicated to the development of global broadband network specifications, will be unveiling the Q209 global broadband figures and IPTV statistics at this month’s Broadband World Forum Europe event in Paris.

The research will be made public by Robin Mersh, Broadband Forum’s Chief Operating Officer on September 8, 2009. He will also provide a brief update on BBFs latest work, and new developments around the areas of broadband network energy efficiency, fiber integration and new quality measure.

Parks Associates is an analyst sponsor of the Broadband World Forum Europe event. In addition, Kurt Scherf is speaking in the session Bringing the Network into the Home: From Connected Home to Real Digital Home, Tuesday, 8 September, 14:00 – 15:30.

Parks Associates supports IPTV World Forum North America

Parks Associates is supporting the IPTV World Forum North America from July 20-21, 2009 at the Millennium Broadway Hotel, New York.

The IPTV World Forum was developed as a direct response to the rapid growth in the marketplace, bringing together operators, technology partners and content providers to explore and define the IPTV evolution. More Info

Thoughts in the IPTV World Forum

While I'm sitting at Heathrow waiting to catch our flight to Nice for the CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit on Tuesday, I have some time to share some thoughts on the IPTV World Forum, which we attended this past week.

I was struck in my conversations with the resounding theme that many operators have really stuck to a "walk-before-you-can-run" approach when it comes to IPTV services, and that mentality also seemed to apply in the presentations that I heard. I shared a lunch table with a vendor and a fellow analyst one day, and they mentioned that some of the prevelant themes from the past (like FMC and IMS) were not quite as evident in this year's conference. Instead, I heard more about how interactive services can be better promoted and how home networking is helping the operators not only reduce costs (by reducing the need for new wiring installations between the modem and the set-top box) but also differentiate with services such as multi-room DVR. Franz Kurath, the Executive Director for Broadband Content at AT&T, spoke about their Total Home DVR feature, which is now available free of charge to all subscribers.

So, what are the "running" features for IPTV? I am really intrigued by the variety of solutions out there for generating recommendations (companies like Neptuny, CID with myLOBster, ThinkAnalytics, and Miniweb Interactive). Paul Berriman, the Chief Technology Officer for PCCW, gave out a statistic that points to the need for better optimization of interactive services and advertising revenues. He said that only 10% of PCCW's revenues are coming from video (although they keep a healthy ARPU in broadband), and only 10% of video revenues are generated by interactive services and advertising. I'll be interested to see some ROI analysis that comes from the recommendation companies.

Two other major sitings at the show were widgets and social networking (combined in many cases). It's clear that Facebook is coming to the TV screen sooner rather than later, and there were companies showing how things like recommendations and ratings could be applied to television services.

And, then there's the connected home aspect. I heard from vendors that DLNA is at least being asked about by the operators, if not yet fully requested in set-top boxes. It's evident that the underlying connectivity features of DLNA will be important for operators and their CPE vendors to consider as they seek to provide subscribers with interesting digital media access and sharing capabilities.

Parks Associates supports IPTV World Forum

Parks Associates is supporting the IPTV World Forum held from March 25-27 in Olympia, London.

Kurt Scherf will be speaking in the session Profit Opportunity Think Tank: The Managed Home Environment – The Last Untapped Revenue Opportunity for Operators? on March 27.

The IPTV World Forum was developed as a direct response to the rapid growth in the marketplace, bringing together operators, technology partners and content providers to explore and define the IPTV evolution.

For more information, visit http://www.iptv-forum.com/ .

Over 100 million households worldwide to have telco IPTV services by 2013

Microsoft keynote to address Customer Service and IPTV at CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit--

Parks Associates welcomed Roger Pitton, Program Director, TV, Video & Music Business, Microsoft Corporation, as the Keynote speaker for CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit, taking place March 31, in Nice, France. It has a full agenda featuring consumer data and expert analysis on advanced video solutions, digital media solutions, and connected consumer electronics.

The worldwide market for telco IPTV services will exceed 100 million households by 2013, a CAGR of approximately 38%, according to international research firm Parks Associates. Mr. Pitton’s keynote “IPTV and the keys to keeping customers” will address the best business strategies to gain and retain customers in the highly competitive European market for these services.

Mr. Pitton has several years of firsthand experience in marketing and selling IPTV services. In his keynote, he will specify the keys to differentiation, including unique content, an unmatched user experience, and the convergence of technology and content, required for sustaining success.
CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit Sessions:
>> European Consumer Trends
>> Broadband and Value-added Services
>> Video Services
>> Digital Media Content & Delivery
>> Connected CE
>> Digital Home Tech Support

Event sponsors include Affinegy, Enure Networks, and HomeGrid Forum. Global Sponsors include ActiveVideo Networks, Affinegy, Cloakware, DSC, HD-PLC Alliance, Icron, Macrovision, MoCA, ProVision Communications, Radialpoint, Telcordia, and Zilog.

For more information, visit http://www.connectionseurope.com/.

Rumblings in the IPTV world

Talk about starting the year off with a bang. Tiscali plans to put a stop to their IPTV service in Italy. In another interesting development, BT has come under some pressure for the growth in their IPTV subscription or lack there of. After a furious 2008 and a lot of positive news, are the telcos beginning to show chinks in their armor? Interestingly enough the Q3 growth rate for AT&T fell to 44% in Q3-08 from 46% in Q2-08. Verizon seems to have experienced an even drastic slow down. VZ clocked in a quarterly growth rate of 12.5% in Q3-08 compared to 147% during the same quarter in 07. Granted, the growth rate is expected to fall as the size of the subscriber base increases, but a triple digit decrease seems a little steep. Q4 numbers will be interesting to look at.

KPN sees strong growth

Dutch telco KPN has reported a growth of 69% as subscribers for its IPTV service reached 700,000 in Q3. KPN estimates it now has a 21% share of the Dutch digital television market. The telco's total revenues for the Q3 hit E3.652 billion, up 20% from the same period of last year, while net profits fell 0.6% by the same comparison to reach E353 million.

For more information about KPN, click here.