MWC 2024 | What Is the Way out for Telco Video Services As IPTV Is Becoming a Past?

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- When IPTV was launched, it soon attracted high volumes of users, and developed very fast. Back then, telecom operators valued a vast user base, whereas today, high-quality video services take priority over large user bases. This leaves the telco operators a new challenging task, that is, to break through the bottlenecks of content and services, and discover different avenues of achieving sustained profits and development opportunities.

A sound ecosystem is the common goal for all parties involved. As a matter of fact, telecom operators around the world, as a main force in the ecosystem, have made useful explorations on how to cope with the challenges and regain optimal revenue growth. Here are some inspiring suggestions:

Platform Strategy: Accelerate OTT Deployment to Build a Convergent Platform

Facing the mounting pressure from OTT video services, most operators have started or completed the construction of their OTT video platforms. It is a wiser choice for them to build an OTT+IPTV convergent platform, but even such a convergent platform has its pros and cons.

• A convergent platform incorporates two systems, doubling O&M costs.
• A convergent platform provides convergent service packages and delivers consistent experiences to both large-screen TVs and small-screen mobile phones.
• A convergent platform simplifies network evolution and requires less investment.

Product Strategy: Continuously Optimize Products, Promote Content-centered Services, and Build Ultimate Experiences

Operators can enhance their video service operations in vertical fields such as education, games, and sports. Besides, they can introduce more featured content, and based on this upgrade service package to a premium video package. In this way, operators can improve the value of a single user and increase user satisfaction.

Operations Strategy: Build a Refined Operations System for Better Service Experiences on TVs and Mobile Phones

The subjects of video service operations need to be integrated to implement unified content copyright management and unified user operations, and promote combined development of video services on large-screen TVs and small-screen mobile phones, as well as the application of convergent home product incorporating mobile phone + broadband + TV + content + service.

Video Experiences: CMAF Reduces Live Streaming Latency by 70%

CMAF is an international standard approved by MPEG to reduce the latency of OTT live streaming. It uses two core technologies, CMAF segmentation and small-packet based fast transmission, to reduce the network latency by 70%, making OTT live streaming experiences as good as a live broadcast.

Value-added Services: Perform Refined Operations on Existing Users for More Profit

Operators can perform refined operations on their users. Global leading operators have started to deploy advertising platforms to provide different advertising models such as Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) and Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI), to meet diverse advertising policies of industry customers. In addition, they can create user profiles to provide personalized video experiences for different users, through the intelligent recommendation powered by big data technologies.

Secure Video Playback: Provide All-round Security Protection for Content Playback to Ensure Stable Service Operations

• Operators need to build content anti-tamper capabilities. Once the content is tampered with, an alarm should be reported in a timely manner, so that operations personnel can take the tampered content offline with just one click.
• For key content, URL anti-leeching must be implemented to prevent unauthorized content playback or recording, so as to protect content copyrights and the value of high-quality videos.
• The EPG, as a user-oriented service window, must be protected. Operators need to periodically check the EPG template and detect exceptions in a timely manner to protect the interests of shareholders.

Intelligent Processing Technologies for Innovative Video Services

With the development of intelligent processing technologies, networks, and computing power, users are demanding more on digital and smart home services oriented to TVs, and they are changing from simply watching TVs to using TVs.

Facing this trend, Huawei worked with China Mobile to introduce an STB. With strong interaction capabilities, this new STB can upgrade large-screen TVs from simply audiovisual entertainment devices to intelligent devices capable of diverse video-based services. Along with the STB comes the InteractVideo solution, which can deliver numerous services such as family calling, video co-viewing, multi-screen collaboration, and interactive fitness.

Now, approximately 140 operators around the world having deployed IPTV services, although they all differ in terms of development status. To embrace the future, Huawei is committed to pursuing optimal and innovative video services, to continuously bring business successes to operators, as well as helping them attract users and increasing the overall revenue.

MWC Barcelona 2024 will be held from February 26 to February 29 in Barcelona, Spain. During the event, Huawei will showcase its latest products and solutions at stand 1H50 in Fira Gran Via Hall 1.

Contact: Dongming.Yin@huawei.com 

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