ANGA COM 2015 opens exhibitor registration

Companies wanting to exhibit at German cable, satellite and broadband trade fair ANGA COM 2015 can now register for space at the show.

The registration documents are available on website www.angacom.de. The ANGA COM exhibition and conference will take place June 9-11, 2015 in Cologne.

This year, 450 exhibitors and more than 17,000 visitors (50% international) attended the show – an increase by 1.5% compared with 2013.

ANGA COM 2015 will focus on topics such as DOCSIS, VOD, personalised TV, media home gateways, recommendation engines, Ultra HD, connected TV, multiscreen and TV everywhere. The call for papers for the conference is open until September 30, 2014.

Tanzanian operator CGL chooses CryptoGuard

Tanzanian operator CGL chooses CryptoGuard as content security partner for their CAS and SMS

MOTALA — Dar es Salaam based operator Content Generation Ltd (CGL) has decided to implement CryptoGuard CAS and SMS and becomes the first Tanzanian operator to use the Swedish security and business system CryptoGuard.

Tanzanian operator CGL and the Swedish CAS and SMS vendor CryptoGuard has come to an agreement that allows CGL to use CryptoGuard to encrypt their TV content. John Hayghaimo Ag CEO – Content Generation Ltd says:
“We at CGL are excited to work with CryptoGuard as they are cost effective, while also providing a package including CAS, SMS & EPG unlike others. CryptoGuard system empowers end users to be self-reliant as they provide wide range of configurations which can be applied to the system by the end user enabling our viewers to enjoy high quality digital programming and value added services.”

The digitisation is going on around the globe and Africa is a big merging market with a lot of growing economies all over the continent.
“We have worked purposefully and continuously on the African market for a couple of years now and we are happy to see that we are following the plan” says Jesper Stål, Sales director of CryptoGuard and continues “CGL is an ideal customer since we have designed our system to suit operators with mixed distribution forms. CGL wanted a system where they can use same CAS and SMS for both DVB-T and DVB-S. Mixed distribution networks suits CryptoGuard CAS perfect, since you can manage multiple distribution forms simultaneously without making any additional installations or settings to the CAS server.”

India re-schedules Phase III and IV cable TV switch over dates

NEW DELHI — India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has officially announced new dates for the phasing out of analogue cable TV in the country.

The digitization of India’s cable TV sector has been taking place in 4 phases with the first two already complete. Phase III has now been moved form 30th September 2014 to 31st December 2015, and Phase IV from 31st December 2014 to 31st December 2016.

Migration to Digital Addressable Cable TV Systems:

                                                                       Sunset date for
Phase      Areas                                                       Analog Cable TV
---------  ----------------------------------------------------------  ---------------
Phase I    Four Metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai                   31.10.2012
Phase II   Cities with a population more than one million (38 cities)       31.03.2013
Phase III  All Urban areas (Municipal Corporation/Municipalities)           31.12.2015
Phase IV   Rest of India                                                    31.12.2016

Russia ends 1H 2014 with 36.4 million pay TV subscribers

iKS-Consulting has released its analysis of the Russian pay TV market at the end of the first half of 2014. Compared with the same point in 2013, the number of pay TV subscribers increased by 10% to exceed 36.4 million, with IPTV growing fastest. Household penetration was 65%, up from 59% a year earlier.

In the country as a whole, there were seven operators with a subscriber base in excess of 1 million households. Tricolor TV had the largest reach with over 10.5 million subscribers. In Moscow, the leading pay TV operator was Rostelecom with more than 3.2 million subscribers.

Operators with a subscriber base of over 1 million – Subscribers (1000s)

  Company        1H2014  1H2013  Growth
                 ------  ------  ------
1 Tricolor TV    10,560   9,500     11%
2 Rostelecom      7,705   6,897     12%
3 ER-Telecom      2,650   2,379     11%
4 MTS             2,595   2,806     -8%
5 Orion Express   2,320   1,360     71%
6 Akado           1,129   1,114      1%
7 VimpelCom       1,061   1,013      5%

Top 5 pay-TV operators in Moscow – Subscribers (1000s)

  Company        1H2014  1H2013  Growth
                 ------  ------  ------
1 Rostelecom      3,219   3,143      2%
2 Akado           1,016   1,014      0%
3 Tricolor TV       568     542      5%
4 VimpelCom         196     173     13%
5 NTV Plus          156     155      0%

By technology, cable TV had the largest share at 50%, though this is down from 54% at the end of the first half of 2013. Both satellite and IPTV took market share from cable TV. Satellite TV ended the first half with 14 million subscribers, with IPTV growing by 29% to 4.1 million.

Pay-TV market share by technology

Technology    1H2014  1H2013  Growth
              ------  ------  ------
Cable TV         50%     54%      4%
Satellite TV     38%     36%     18%
IPTV             11%     10%     29%

iKS-Consulting expects that in 2018, satellite will have taken 40% of the market, IPTV 12%, with cable TV reducing to 48%. Household penetration is expectedd to reach 72%.

Russian operators face distribution hikes

Operators distributing TV channels in Russia may find themselves being charged significantly more from the beginning of next year, when new legislation banning advertising on most thematic channels comes into effect.

Kommersant reports that Viasat, whose revenues in Russia exceed R500 million (€10.2 million) each year, has already warned about increasing its fees by almost a half.

Its thematic channels are among popular in Russia, being watched each month by around 20 million viewers.

Recently, the Moscow-based cable operator Akado withdrew four Europort channels from its offer, apparently due to the high fees it was being charged for them.

New DTT player in Ukraine

The Ukrainian regulator (National Council) has awarded a DTT licence to Karpat TV.

It allows the company to offer multichannel services, in the frequency range 11.7-12.5 GHz, employing MITRIS technology, for a period of 10 years.

The National Council initially advertised the licence at the beginning of this year.

It only received one submission, from Karpat TV, and decided to approve it following a board meeting on September 11.

Karpat TV will provide viewers in the Carpathian region of Ukraine with up to 32 channels.

Telekom Romania opts for Viaccess-Orca

The newly named Telekom Romania has selected Viaccess-Orca’s Voyage TV Everywhere solution for its upcoming IPTV and multiscreen service Telekom TV.

The service will also use technology supplied by Cap Gemini, Friendly Technologies, Broadpeak, Harmonic, Accedo, and Zenterio, with the latter’s operating system served on KAONMEDIA’s set-top boxes.

According to Nikola Beckers, CEO of Telekom Romania, “To provide a superior multiscreen service to potentially millions of subscribers across Romania, we needed a TV Everywhere solution that offers unparalleled levels of interactivity and personalisation. Unifying the service delivery across different networks by using a single converged system was also important.

“Viaccess-Orca’s Voyage solution enables us to offer a compelling personalised television experience on every screen. Our customers can create favorite channels lists, bookmark movies or channels, set up reminders, and record preferred content on all connected devices.”

Prior to deploying Viaccess-Orca’s Voyage, Telekom Romania was using multiple infrastructure silos for its TV offers.
Voyage supports all types of TV and video service delivery modes on all devices with any business model.

François Moreau de Saint Martin, CEO of Viaccess-Orca, said: “Utilising our Voyage-TV Everywhere solution, Telekom Romania can provide subscribers with a personalized television experience that flows seamlessly from one screen to another, regardless of device type.

“As Telekom Romania grows, our Voyage solution will enable the operator to further enrich its customers’ journey into content experience.”

Telekom Romania is the new brand name used by Romtelecom and Cosmote.