ExtendMedia builds ITV application for MTS DSL televison service

Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. (MTS) has announced what it says is the first business-on-demand interactive television (ITV) service in Canada, a virtual channel offered to its DSL TV customers promoting events at the recently-opened MTS Centre. The service, developed in collaboration with Toronto-based ExtendMedia and with content provided by True North Sports and Entertainment Ltd., provides information about entertainment and sports events at the facility, including about the Manitoba Moose hockey team. It also enables customers to buy tickets through the television, or to request more information. MTS says the announcement is the first of several new ITV applications it will offer to its more than 25,000 DSL television subscribers, including games-on-demand and video-on-demand. The service, called MTS Centre on Demand, is powered by a standards-based application with publishing and content management systems developed by ExtendMedia that work with the Motorola set-top box being used by MTS in delivering its DSL television offering. Motorola’s Next Level Communications team developed the base platform, the server and the client environment now being marketed to telcos eyeing the opportunity to sell video services over their Internet networks. The service, says MTS’ Lisa Lawrence, is one of the company’s first forays into standalone web-like applications for ITV as MTS explores the technology and its potential to provide a revenue stream. She says the MTS Centre-on-Demand service is a trial of the technology, but that future applications such as advertising and developing virtual channels with third-party business content providers may prove viable businesses. "I don’t know of any other interactive TV services in Canada that (offer) what we would define as a business-on-demand service. Usually they’re an on-demand service, but it’s associated with buying and selling existing information like horoscopes or news items, but this is the first time, we believe, that a business-on-demand service has been developed. I know that Madison Square Gardens does have one, but I don’t know of any others." ExtendMedia VP of marketing Erik Davis tells Canadian NEW MEDIA that the company was involved with the Madison Square Gardens initiative to which Lawrence refers, and is actively working with other telcos to sell similar services. He notes that developing applications for platforms such as Motorola’s DSL set-top box has advantages over other television distribution systems such as cable and satellite. "It’s not so much DSL versus cable/satellite. It’s the particular delivery mechanism. The big advantage here is that it’s using IP. And you’re using it on a high-speed Internet connection. There are other models of doing it. Most of the cable systems that have tried to launch interactive television applications have used broadcast-based technologies to deliver the application. They’re using data carousels and stuff like that, and there are bandwidth limitations to doing that." The company has significant experience in the field. ExtendMedia suffered a slight blow when, as reported by CNM two years ago, BCE Inc. put its ComboBox development work on hold (CNM, Nov. 28/02). The ComboBox project was unveiled to great fanfare in February 2001 when BCE announced plans to introduce a new set-top box that would integrate satellite TV and DSL Internet access with a high-memory/storage personal video recorder (PVR). The new technology was to have facilitated the delivery of advanced interactive services for TV and other applications, as well as allow the hook-up of multiple devices on a home network. The project was being developed in conjunction with EchoStar Communications Corp., the hardware provider, along with Extend. EchoStar also provides Bell ExpressVu with satellite TV equipment. MTS has become a major rival to TELUS Corp., which has won broadcast licences of its own, and to BCE after its acquisition of Allstream Inc., MTS and TELUS require compelling television offerings and ITV applications to better compete with BCE’s combinations of local telephony, satellite television, DSL Internet and wireless phone, all likely to be rounded out with Voice over IP telephony outside its traditional territory sometime in 2005. Davis says the ComboBox development work, though it was eventually shut down, has since proven valuable to ExtendMedia’s work with other clients in that space. "Our understanding of the interactive television marketplace, or the digital television marketplace more broadly, has been impacted by many of the projects we’ve done. We’ve worked for cable, satellite and telco. And, increasingly, telco has been more of a focus as they’re launching more television-based services. And, ComboBox was a key piece of that. The main thing about ComboBox was that in addition to having a satellite down-channel, it had two-way DSL connection for delivering interactive applications. That was a pretty key piece of that. It broke the model a fair bit, because traditionally there have been more Wink-style broadcast applications that have been launched. We had done similar work for Cablevision Systems on a similarly architected platform to MTS’. It was, in that case, a DOCSIS cable-based approach, which is actually fairly unique in North America. But, we’d actually been a prime application developer on most of the applications for the launch of that service." He says Extend recognizes the importance of telcos as an important market, and has been working with hardware providers other than Motorola to reach them. "Certainly we’re pursuing it, and we are working with other telcos in a similar IP TV context. I can’t talk too much about it, but it’s certainly a growth market for us, because there’s a whole wealth of new folks entering the space. SBC just dropped $400 million, or announced $400 million, on Microsoft TV’s platform, which is a fairly major announcement for telcos getting into the space. We’re closely engaged with Microsoft with several of their IP TV initiatives, as well – some other initiatives they’ve got going. Certainly, that’s an interesting development for us."

ExtendMedia builds ITV application for MTS DSL televison service

News | 12/06/2004 5:00 am EST

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