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Tuesday, May 7, 2002 |
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• iN Demand is in at AT&T as Diva phases out of VOD • Sprint evaluates broadband wireless technologies • TI, Motorola team for cable modems • Time Warner Telecom gains despite mixed results • Cable MSOs see possibilities for tiered Internet access
Although some may say it is a case of a minnow swallowing the whale, enScaler Inc. sees its acquisition of Lariat Software Inc. as a marriage of complementary technologies. The combined company will offer the streaming media market the whole enchilada: front-end, back-office and measuring capabilities. "The acquisition gives us momentum to be a player in the streaming media space," enScaler's CEO Deepak Srinivasan tells CED Broadband Direct. Lariat, a developer of streaming media business reporting and broadcast solutions, offers products priced from $5,000 to $500,000, while enScaler's, a middleware platform provider, products range from $500,000 to $5 million. The combined company will offer its customers more choice, says Srinivasan. Lariat's front-end and back-office products will complement enScaler's middleware platforms, including mediaScaler, mediaEnterprise and mediaSubscriber. The company will target service providers, enterprises and content owners. Despite the economic environment, the streaming media market has steadily increased over the last 18 months. Companies have invested heavily in their infrastructures, and now are looking for ways to measure the costs and the returns. "The ability to measure is key," says Srinivasan. "There is almost no integration risk between the two companies' products - they are a fairly neat fit," he says. "Companies are incorporating a lot more streaming media into their daily activities, because it provides more 'bang for the buck' over their installed Ethernet LANs," says Gerry Kaufhold, a principal analyst with In-Stat/MDR, which is owned by the same parent as CED Broadband Direct. "enScaler's acquisition of Lariat (creates) a true end-to-end capability for companies to create, store, search, manage and account for all their media assets," he says. Although financial terms of the deal were not released, Srinivasan says enScaler reported millions in revenue last year, and with Lariat acquisition, the company expects to exceed that amount this year. Lariat will continue to operate as a separate entity. Looking at the streaming media industry as a whole, Srinivasan says although consolidation of companies is a possibility, well-defined business partnerships between companies in the space is more likely right now.
iN Demand is in at AT&T as Diva phases out of VOD It's only Tuesday, but it has been a good week for iN Demand. First a video-on-demand deal with 20th Century Fox studio and now AT&T Broadband. iN Demand will supply AT&T Broadband with first-run major motion pictures, select library titles and cable network premier programming, AT&T Broadband said in a statement. IN Demand's portfolio consists of content from Universal, Sony, DreamWorks, Fox, Artisan and Hallmark. The pay-per-view and VOD content provider will replace Diva Systems Corp. at AT&T Broadband's side in the content side of the VOD market. Diva announced earlier this year it was getting out of the VOD content licensing to focus on its core software technology. In June, iN Demand will begin offering content to AT&T Broadband in Atlanta and Los Angeles. Last week, AT&T entered the subscription VOD market, launching a trial in the Los Angeles metropolitan area featuring content from Starz! and Showtime. AT&T Broadband also announced it is consolidating its Headend in the Sky unit into its AT&T Digital Media Centers division. The move is designed to strengthen the digital media division's ability to integrate its service offerings and streamline customer interaction. Garry Traver, AT&T Digital Media Centers' senior vice president for video services, will oversee the operations of the combined unit.
Sprint evaluates broadband wireless technologies Let the competition begin. Sprint is testing the waters in the broadband wireless technology market through two field trials, one in Navini Networks, and one with IP Wireless. May the best technology win. The trials are designed to test the "viability of next-generation technologies," says Cameron Rejali, Sprint's vice president of broadband wireless products and operations. Sprint expects the trials to determine which company has the superior technology. Sprint's goal is to find a technology that will be a solid moneymaker once the company deploys its broadband wireless service. Sprint last year shelved new deployments of its MMDS-based Sprint Broadband Direct service, ostensibly to await market-ready, non-line-of-sight equipment that would enable customers to install their own gear. The Navini Networks' trial is now under way in Houston. Navini's technology, which uses adaptive phased-array smart antenna technology, delivers zero-install, nomadic and multi-megabit broadband data rates within cellular ranges. Last month in Montreal, Sprint began testing IPWireless' technology, which uses advanced signal processing techniques to maximize receiver sensitivity and minimize interference. These two trials will enable Sprint to evaluate multicell architectures and test the capacity, portability, indoor penetration and customer experience from a pocket-sized portable device, says Sprint. Sprint also is considering point-to-multipoint non-line-of-sight technologies. Separately, Sprint signed a multiyear deal to beef up Coast Dental Services Inc.'s network. Although financial terms were not disclosed, Sprint will deliver voice over IP, managed network services, high-speed data and wireless services through the implementation of a new frame relay network, IP services, Sprint PCS and customer premise equipment. Sprint will leverage its existing relationship with Cisco Systems Inc. for the hardware. Cisco's 1700 Series Access routers will be used for remote frame relay services, its 3600 Series router for the frame relay host site and other related equipment for the deployment of a IP virtual private network.
TI, Motorola team for cable modems Texas Instruments Inc. and Motorola Broadband Communications Sector are joining forces to speed the delivery of DOCSIS 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 certified cable modems to the broadband cable market. The deal calls for Motorola to incorporate TI's complete DOCSIS system into its SURFboard SB4220 cable modem. TI's complete DOCSIS system integrates DOCSIS physical (PHY) and media access control (MAC) layers of the open system interconnect (OSI) reference model, with a high performance communications processor and peripherals for networking and communication applications. The SURFboard SB4220 also will incorporate TI's A-TDMA advanced physical layer capability specified in the CableLabs DOCSIS 2.0 standard. Motorola has been in the cable modem business for eight years, and has shipped roughly 8 million cable modems into the market.
Time Warner Telecom gains despite mixed results In the first quarter 2002, Time Warner Telecom results offered a mixed bag - revenue dipped slightly, but the quarterly pre-tax loss narrowed. Revenue fell slightly from $173.1 million in Q1 2001 to $168.7 million. The company blames non-recurring, acquisition-related revenue of $4.6 billion in the first quarter 2001 for the dip in revenue this year. When broken down to unit levels, revenue generated from data and Internet services increased 34 percent to $20.4 million. The company posted a pre-tax loss of $43 million, down from the $46.9 million loss reported in Q1 2001. As of 10:38 a.m. EDT, Time Warner Telecom shares were up 19 cents, or nearly 7 percent, to $2.94. The company's stock has traded as high as $50.43 a share in the last 52 weeks.
Day 2: A wave of companies will be showcasing their products and technologies this week at NCTA 2002 in New Orleans. The CED Magazine staff will bring you the latest news and product information each day live from the show. Below is a glimpse of what's happening at the show, but for complete show coverage visit www.cedmagazine.com/cable2002/index.htm. S-A shipping high def set-tops, home entertainment
servers S-A has also announced its inaugural shipment of its new Explorer 8000 home entertainment servers for customer trials. The server gives consumers the ability to pause live
TV, record one channel while watching another, record two channels
and play back another simultaneously, and watch picture-in-picture
on any consumer television set. SeaChange extends VOD platform with PVR capabilities Adelphia Communications will power its sports-on-demand service with SeaChange's PVR capabilities. Having successfully completed tests of PVR earlier this month with Buffalo Sabres games on-demand, Adelphia is preparing to add sports-on-demand to its digital service roster. Comprised of software and video encoders, SeaChange's PVR application records live events onto the video-on-demand system, providing subscribers with immediate access via existing digital set-top applications with fast-forward, pause and rewind. For complete control of the viewing experience, subscribers can exit a recorded program stream to re-join its live broadcast. CableLabs moves on OCAP 2.0 The latest version includes a Java-based Execution Engine (EE) and also a Presentation Engine (PE) for Web-based applications based on platforms such as XHTML and XML. CableLabs issued OCAP 1.0 in January. Both versions of the middleware are designed to enable content suppliers to write applications once, instead of building different versions. SOHOware checks in with hotel networking gear The SOHOware hospitality equipment includes a server, router, wireless Ethernet bridge and access points that can jointly cover up to 15 rooms. Not only does that eliminate the need to wire every room for broadband Internet access, but it also allows business travelers who already use wireless LAN technology to tap the connection at a hotel without changing computer settings. In addition, it supports security and virtual private networking technologies. Santa Clara, Calif.-based SOHOware has put its hospitality access system into several field trials, including one with an unnamed MSO on the East Coast. There, the SOHOware connection is providing services at a hotel and at marinas covering 200 boat slips. Up to now, such wireless services have focused on airports and public kiosks. One focus for the hospitality connection scheme is to lessen the need for the cable operator to service the gear. SOHOware's system, therefore, includes software that helps the hotel owners install and monitor the network equipment or hand it over for remote management by service providers.
Cable MSOs see possibilities for tiered Internet access
NEW ORLEANS -- Cable executives touched the so-called "third rail" of high-speed Internet access at the NCTA convention, debating whether to charge customers more for higher speed or more bandwidth usage and reducing speeds for those unwilling to pay higher prices. Comcast Exec. Vp-Sales & Mktg. David Watson said his company was afraid of alienating customers after just getting them hooked on the service. Besides, he said, Comcast has yet to figure out the appropriate cost structure for such a service. Although he said the idea should be looked at over time, the notion still was premature because demand for the higher end product was growing and cable was facing robust competition from DSL. "Before you start going down, you want to make sure you've exhausted the opportunities going north in terms of revenue," Watson said. But Cox Vp-Multimedia Technology John Hildebrand likened tiered pricing to the introduction of the light bulb and the concept that customers should be charged for kilowatt-hours they used, since some homes used more electricity than others. Cox has a trial in Las Vegas involving tiered pricing for high-speed Internet usage, and Hildebrand said there was room for that in marketplace: "It's probably the right way to go." He said the company already had set up back-office systems to implement a metered usage system. Charging more for higher speeds right now is "a terribly bad idea," Time Warner Cable Ventures CEO Christopher Bogart said, in part because that still was a new product for cable. "Consumers, as we all know, are not exactly in love with us," he said, and broadband was "changing consumers from people who tolerate us to people who are actually enthusiastic about us." He said now wasn't the time to start slowing access down, even though the product would be twice speed of dial-up. But Bogart didn't rule out the possibility of charging more for increased bandwidth to someone who, for example, ran a server out of basement. Michael Lee, vp-product development for Rogers Cable in Canada, said his company last month had begun offering lower tier as a way to reduce 30 percent-40 percent churn it had been experiencing because some customers concluded that they didn't spend enough time online to warrant speed and "always- on" capability. Those subscribers were returning to dial-up connections, Lee said, and lower tier has been found as a way to stop them from dropping out altogether. Although data are limited because the company has been offering lower tier for only a month, Lee said, many of those who decided to try lower tier ultimately returned to higher speed access. Cox's Hildebrand agreed: "Are we leaving money on the table by not offering a lower tier? Our thinking is, probably so."
• FastComm goes Chapter 11, again FastComm intends to continue operating while the reorganization is worked out. • Akamai names Salerno to its board • SMC intros 802.11a-compliant broadband
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