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ERNIE – Entertainment and new interactive services via DSL
DSL technology offers the capacity needed for delivery of broadband entertainment services thus opening market opportunities that are becoming very attractive for telecom operators. Cable and satellite operators currently dominate this market, so that broadband services delivered over DSL have to provide an added value to the customer in order to be successful. Residential broadband is being rapidly deployed in Europe. While in December 2001 only about 4 million connections were available, the DSL Forum (http://www.dslforum.org/) reported over 11 million in March 2003. Western Europe was the fastest growing region in broadband DSL subscribers. Residential broadband will penetrate 20 percent of total European households by 2006; reaching between 25 percent and 30 percent in some markets. ADSL accounts for the majority of subscriptions and is expected to enjoy a far steeper growth than cable modem services. According to the DSL forum the value of the residential broadband access market will rise from 1.2 billion € in 2001 to 11.3 billion € by 2006. Having these figures in mind, as well as the desire for a separation of cable operations from telecom operations, the Eurescom project on “Entertainment and new interactive services via DSL – ERNIE” (P1201) is studying the feasibility of provisioning broadband residential services such as video on-demand and interactive TV services via IP-based networks. The project chose a user-centric approach focussing on acceptability and quality aspects compared to traditional DVB-based or analogue TV services. Based on a collection and assessment of customer requirements, as well as an assessment of available technologies, the project is developing a showcase demonstrator to prove the feasibility of delivering broadband services to the residential customer. Despite an increase of Internet usage, the TV-set is the most ubiquitous household device and will remain the mass-market medium for home entertainment as the “lean backward” medium. Customers are highly interested in advanced residential entertainment services and the acceptance of such services is positive in general. Service Portfolio and Customer Requirements Regarding services the project defined a service portfolio, derived from the expectations and requirements of residential customers. The main services identified in the area of entertainment and interactive services over DSL are consolidated in Table 1:
Regarding content the market analysis showed that there is a general expectation of a broad spectrum of quality content. More specifically customers ask for:
Regarding usability aspects the main expectations relate to flexible and seamless access to the services. More specifically customers ask for:
Finally transparency of prices, tariffs and discounts is an important customer requirement. Target User Groups and Service Packages Potential target and user groups of the possible entertainment and new interactive services that can be offered via DSL have been identified following two different approaches; (1) the socio-demographic approach, i.e. considering gender, age, income, education level, occupation etc. and (2) the “soft facts” approach, i.e. considering disposable time, lifestyle, usage rate and attitude towards TV, Internet and interactive services. The second approach better describes users’ attitude toward different topics of interest. Consolidating available data the possible target groups can be classified according to Figure 1.
Offers will have to be flexible enough to provide services for a wide variety of users. There is no single adoption model; so different packages need to be tailored for the different customers, matching their needs, also within the groups. In general standard offers are suitably for groups A and C which represent more or less the mass market, whereas premium offers refer to groups B and D. The bundling of services (data, voice, video) via a unified platform (ADSL) would be the first critical consumer requirement. The possible service packages (see Table 2) for home users are based on the target groups, their needs and requirements. All the packages could include as a basic service a fast Internet access and voice over IP.
Table 2: Targeted service bundling ERNIE Services One of the objectives of the project ERNIE is to develop an overall system concept that can be implemented by a demonstrator offering services from the identified service portfolio. The following list of services have been analysed from the functional and technical perspective and are being integrated in the demonstrator considering the different user requirements. Live streaming From the end-user’s point of view live video streaming is very similar to TV broadcasting – in contrast to on-demand streaming. The same content is distributed simultaneously to a large audience of users and there is no possibility for the end user to modify the play back of the video like using a video recorder for fast forward, rewind, pause etc. Like in classical broadcast scenarios, the only thing he can do is to choose between different channels or to switch on or off the “video channel“ on his client device. Live video streaming can be seen as a modified replacement of conventional television where the Internet replaces the transmission channel. Therefore some general requirements for live video streaming can be derived by combining the advantages of conventional television and those of the Internet and by avoiding their disadvantages. From television the user is used to “zap“ through the channels. To provide the user the same experience, the delay introduced by encoding/decoding algorithm, as well as by streaming buffers should be as short as possible. A total delay of some seconds or more will not be accepted by the end users. On-Demand Services The term “on-demand services” subsumes a number of very interesting service opportunities ranging from video or music on-demand, interactive games, interactive news TV, over video conferencing, distance learning, up to catalogue browsing and e-shopping. In order to use on-demand services, customers can normally use their PC or their TV connected to an additional set-top box. The essence of video on demand (VoD) is that users can view the offered content at any time they like. Interactive video on demand (iVoD) is an enhanced, updated version of the VoD service where viewers watching the videos may use functionalities similar to those of the video recorders (forward, rewind, pause, slow). An iVoD system consists of three main components: the set-top box or PC at the customer side, the distribution network and the server at the provider side. All iVoD connections require bi-directional communication between the user and the service provider. Movies are stored on special devices and delivered by video-servers. A system of an appropriate design must be able to manage several hundreds or even thousands of requests simultaneously; furthermore quality of service in the individual users view may not deteriorate with an increasing number of clients and streams. Delayed TV / Personal Video Recorder In interactive real time feed applications, viewers can not only watch live broadcasts, but also control the playback (pause, rewind, fast forward) of the live feed, up to the current point in time. There are two versions: “Delayed TV” which is fully operator controlled and Personal Video Recorder (PVR), which is viewer controlled. Delayed TV is defined as the capturing and storing of live streaming on the video server for a later play-back. The choice of specific channels and programs is controlled by a scheduling mechanism that is linked to the electronic program guide (EPG) and is under the control of the operator. A PVR enables the viewer to locate and specify a program from an EPG that will be casted in the future for recording. The PVR functionality can be implemented by allocating hard disk memory, usually on the set-top box. Video Telephony The idea of video telephony is just as old as telephony itself. The term video telephony describes full-duplex, real-time audio-visual, electronic person-to-person communication using visual and audio connections. Current price evolution of basic multimedia equipment that can be attached to a PC has supplied most PCs with video telephony capabilities. Together with a DSL based Internet connection the customer can easily be offered video telephony services. Navigation / Electronic Program Guide The navigation and electronic program guide (EPG) provide the user with an interface to the system. It must be easy to understand and use and should provide all expected functionality to use the available services. The design and “look and feel” are as critical for successful services as the content itself. The design of presentation pages for the TV is different from the design for a PC. Pages for the TV requires disciplined design in order to provide the user with a comforting visual experience. The user generally sits more than 2 metres away from the TV screen. This means that anything on the screen needs to be bold and large enough to be seen from a distance. For the same reason, the screen should be free from clutter with limited text and visual objects. The choice of colours has a great impact on the presentation quality, e.g. high contrast display may result in image distortion. Also pages should be designed to fit within a single screen to avoid scrolling. The menu must support personalisation and secure access. Conclusion The competition to win the consumer market is rising amongst the different service providers (telecom operators, cable and satellite companies). Telecom operators have not yet enough experience in offering and delivering interactive TV and entertainment services. If telecom operators will take a share in this emerging business area they need to develop maturity in this business sectors. The technology for delivering interactive broadband services is becoming available and prices are dropping. Set-top box technology enables today services like the Internet, messaging, entertainment on demand, etc. on the TV-set. Bringing more interactive services into the home will help increase revenues and gain customer loyalty. There is high potential in offering new interactive broadband services for residential customers via DSL connections. For successful rollout and considering the future penetration of DSL subscribers, the telecom operators have to gather the user requirements (both end-users and content provider) and develop the market perspectives by introducing suitable business models for broadband entertainment services over DSL. More information about the project can be found at http://www.eurescom.de/Public/Projects/P1200-series/P1201/ Please send us your comments on this article. |
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