Is SA ready for IPTV? Telkom Media thinks so!
Telkom Media, a subsidiary of Telkom, is amongst the few companies recently awarded a pay TV licence by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA). Other partners in the joint venture are Videovision Entertainment, MSG Afrika Media and WDB Investment Holdings. Together these four entities combine a wealth of electronic media expertise.
The partnership’s business focus is the provisioning of converged solutions in the information, education and entertainment environment in order to stimulate demand for entertainment services in South Africa.
Why did Telkom get involved in TV services? Should the company not stay with its traditional business?
According to Rikus Matthyser, chief strategy and operations officer at Telkom Media, customers are saying that they do not get enough value from the jack on the wall.
“If I don’t get more for my money I will go to mobile. Now I have my telephone calls in my pocket and I can enjoy all the other wonderful things mobile companies are offering!”
One of Telkom Media’s aims is to add value to the telephone jack in the customer’s home. Bundling voice minutes and internet access was the beginning. Ultimately however, the obvious solution is triple play services and adding TV services to the offering. “And that is what is now going to happen”, says Matthyser.
Early last year the Minister of Communications, Dr. Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri issued invitations for companies to apply for a pay TV licence both over satellite and cable.
“We applied on 31 August last year”, says Matthyser. A period of comment and public hearings followed. The rest is history. We were fortunate that we could comply with all the conditions and were granted the licence in September this year.”
In addition to satellite, Telkom Media will offer its services using internet protocol television (IPT) to deliver its products over the internet. In the South African context IPTV is a premium differentiated service that will cater for a relatively high income market who can afford broadband and PC equipment.
The service will offer multiple channels.
IPTV will run over ADSL2+ or as Telkom refers to it next generation DSL technology, which is in the process of being rolled out by Telkom. This means that initially IPTV is limited to viewers who live near an upgraded exchange.
Next generation DSL extends the capability of basic ADSL by doubling the number of downstream bits. The data rates can be as high as 24 Mbps/s downstream and 1 Mbps upstream depending on the distance from the exchange to the customer’s home.
Next generation DSL is capable of doubling the frequency band of typical ADSL connections from 1,1 MHz to 2,2 MHz and allows port bonding.
This is where multiple ports are physically provisioned to the end user and the total bandwidth is equal to the sum of all provisioned ports. So if two lines capable of
24 Mbps were bonded, the end result would be a connection capable of 48 Mbps. True broadband!
Although IPTV is delivered via the internet, it is implemented on a private network so no capping is applicable. At the customers end a set top box is provided to decode the channels and feed the TV.
While a high definition set is not required, it would be advantageous to enjoy the full picture quality offered by HDTV (when it rolls out and HD content becomes available).
So what can the viewer expect?
Telkom Media plans to offer local sport, news, music and a broad range of content across other key genres. International content will be accessed from major studios in the US and UK.
With the assistance of Videovision Entertainment, Telkom Media is having discussions with a large number of content providers.
The company believes that it will also make a significant contribution to the local content generation industry but has not been specific about how that will be achieved.
“We promise our customers a completely new experience. We are creating various bouquets starting with a family bouquet of between 8 and 10 channels on satellite for under R100 per month (excl. VAT). We will have approximately 40 channels available on the satellite offering.
Customers will be able to purchase additional channels depending on the viewing tastes. We will be using the basis of our satellite bouquets for the IPTV offering. IPTV will be a completely new experience with the interactivity it offers from video on demand to internet shopping, commerce, VoIP telephony and other commercial services, all from the one plug in the wall”, Matthyser said.
Imagine ordering the latest video online and as the film starts, there is a knock on the door a complete meal is delivered and with a bottle of the best South African wine. We still dream about it, but soon it will be reality.
EngineerIT
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