Sezmi, Netgem Combine to Attack Traditional Pay-TV

From The Online Reporter   

-Combined OTA/OTT Service Aimed at Telcos 

- Land Major Mexican Telco

It’s not just over-the-top (OTT) TV and it’s not just over-the-air (OTA) TV. The new partnership between Sezmi and Netgem

Sezmi also has a cloud-based video service for mobiles.

Is this then the future of pay-TV? Over-the-top and over-the-air?

Sezmi, which has a successful US OTT/OTA business, will include Netgem’s STB and middleware as part of Sezmi’s offering to telcos that want to offer a pay-TV service but without making a major investment in their broadband network as AT&T, Verizon, BT, France Telecom and many others are doing. Verizon has spent over $20 billion to upgrade parts of its network to FTTH.

Sezmi Integrates All Content into One User Interface

Grupo Iusacell, one of Mexico’s leading telco and pay-TV companies, is the first customer of the combined Sezmi-Netgem offering. The service is called Totalplay and will be available later this year to its mobile and fiber subscribers.

Telcos Dream

 

The Sezmi/Netgem offering separates the pay-TV question from the network upgrade question for the telcos. Faced with rapidly declining revenues from residential phone service, they have been forced to upgrade most or all of their copper network to fiber in order to offer pay TV. Without the fiber upgrade, they would likely have begun losing their DSL broadband subscribers to the cablecos that have been upgrading to 100 Mbps-capable broadband with DOCSIS 3.0 technology. It requires no new wires, only an equipment change at the head-end and the modem in the home.

Sezmi

Sezmi is a different kind of pay-TV service provider, which, like Fetch TV in Australia, offers local over-the-air stations and Web-based TV movies, TV shows and videos on a DVR that has a strong antenna for receiving local broadcasts. It sells direct in markets like Los Angeles and through telcos. Basic service is $4.99 monthly and movies range from $.99 to $4.99 for rentals and about $14.99 on average for purchase. TV shows rent for even less and can be purchased for $1.99 to $2.99 per episode.

The subscriber does not get all the many pay-TV channels such as CNN, ESPN and HBO

A Select Plus package, priced at $19.99 per month, adds a lineup of live and on-demand cable TV channels from the most watched cable networks.

Sezmi says its over-the-air reception is a smart diversity-based system that specifically compensates for multi-path and other issues that complicate indoor reception. It said it’s been proven in US trials.

The combination of content sources will vary by region and operator. In Mexico, it’s delivering the service over fiber so there is no OTA antenna. Multicast IP is used to deliver the broadcast channels. It has evolved its platform to be all cloud based so it can adapt the video delivery to many different transport types.

We do not have the list of channels and content that Grupo Iusacell will offer.

The system uses Sezmi server applications to deliver the content.

The telco relationship is with Sezmi as the platform and professional services provider.

Sezmi Architecture

Netgem

Sezmi’s OTT content is the usual thousands of movies, TV shows and Web videos.

All content, OTT and OTA, is seamlessly integrated and seamlessly experienced regardless of delivery mode, according to Sezmi.

The service is available in 36 US markets. Best Buy, Amazon and other retailers sell Sezmi’s one-terabyte HD DVRs for $149.99.

Trials are underway in Mexico for a launch by year-end.

Sezmi offers a cloud-based video service for mobile devices, a powerful attraction for telcos, most of which are making millions, if not billions, from mobile business.

Netgem sells STBs and middleware for IPTV services. Customers include Telstra, Telekom Slovenije, Monaco Telecom and Vivendi’s SFR, incumbent telcos that wanted a way to offer pay-TV services to every broadband subscriber.

Netgem is strong in Western Europe, and Sezmi is strong in the US, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Netgem CEO Christophe Aulnette says it has installations in 10 countries and its technology is in more than 3.5 million households. It also offers a software development kit that enables customization and development of applications that Sezmi is leveraging to implement its services smoothly on hardware and software.

For Phil Wiser, co-founder and president of Sezmi, Netgem was a clear choice as the company looked to add more end-user devices. He said Netgem’s technology is proven and affordable. It shows how Sezmi can operate on third-party hardware. The service, he said, combines "the best of both broadcast and broadband content distribution to home and mobile devices."

Netgem CEO Christophe Aulnette called the service "the best blend of TV and Web content for an experience well beyond anything possible on broadband alone."

Wiser made it clear that the partnership has its sights set on selling every telco worldwide. Because it works over standard broadband, telcos can implement the Sezmi service without having to undertake a major network upgrade — no wires to run. Wiser called the service a game changer. He said Sezmi and Netgem together can "enable a complete multi-screen TV experience to be delivered to the broadest set of broadband service providers on a platform of industry-leading video products."

Sample local channels for Washington DC that are available free through Sezmi’s over-the-air tuner
Major Networks	Classic TV and Movies	Hispanic Programming
ABC	ION	Univision
CBS	RTV (Retro TV Network)	V-me
FOX	This TV	Ethnic Programming
MyNetwork TV	Kids	Al Jazeera
NBC	PBS Kids	Ethiopian Television
PBS	Qubo	Euronews
The CW	Lifestyle/Religious	France 24
News/Weather/Sports	Family TV 38	Metro Chinese Network
NBC Plus	Create - DIY	MHz Worldview
Universal Sports	ION Life	NHK World TV
Weather Now	Worship TV	Russian Today TV
Weather Radar		SABC News International
		VTV4

--------------

Rider Research has prepared a special report called ""Smart TVs: The Second Generation" to help bring you and your staff up to date on the smart TV market.

E-mail paperboy@riderresearch.com for a free extract.

 

Prices:
Single reader license  $295 
2-3 readers  $690
4-5 readers  $875
6-10 readers  $1,140
11-25 readers $2,212
26 or more readers $3,500

--------------

To see 4 free editions of The Online Reporter, the weekly source for competitive intelligence about digital content, online entertainment services, mobile media and wireless networks, visit http://onlinereporter.com/subscribe/