Met@box - der GB deal - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[Oliver H.]

Ende November teilte die Met@box AG einen Auftrag über mindestens 100 000 s.-t. boxen basierend auf der Phoenix-Plattform mit einem nicht näher genannten britischen Konsortium mit.
GB ist in Europa die in Bezug auf iTV wohl best erschlossenste Region.
Sehr bald wurden erneute Zweifel an der Werthaltigkeit dieses Auftrages laut. Zudem wurde auch sehr bald argumentiert, der britische Markt sei bereits gesättigt, er würde von Sky (News cooperation) kontrolliert etc.
Auch sogenannte Fachblätter wie Infosat waren sich nicht zu schade trotz besserem Wissen derartigen Nonsense zu verbreiten.

Fakt ist: obwohl der britische iTV Markt im Gegensatz zu den meisten anderen europäischen Märkten bereits vorhanden ist und somit als Referenzmarkt für viele Unternehmen der wichtigste in Europa ist, ist die Entwicklung hier keinesfalls abgeschlossen. Vielmehr entsteht in GB gegenwärtig genau das, was für einen Markt essentiell ist: Competition.
Neben dem „frontrunner“ Sky gibt es in der Zwischenzeit mehr als ein Dutzend kleinere, mittlere und Großunternehmen, die sich im bereich iTV hier engagieren. Einige von ihnen sind mit ihrem Angebot im Herbst 2000 gestartet, viele werden auch erst im 1. Halbjahr 2001 starten.

Aus diesem Grund habe ich mich entschlossen einen Teil meiner Recherchen der letzten Wochen zu diesem Thema hier frei zur Verfügung zu stellen. Eigentlich gehört dieser thread ins iTV/Broadband Forum. Angesichts der vielen unqualifizierten Poster, die es nicht für nötig befinden, sich voll registrieren zu lassen (teils, weil sie auf diese Weise mehrere IDs unterhalten können) die sich im met@box Umfeld tummeln, möchte ich es allerdings lieber im NM (reg) Forum platzieren. Ich bitte w:o das zu akzeptieren.

Zunächst einmal möchte ich die aktuell (Sommer 2000) größten und bekanntesten iTV Providern in GB vorstellen:

Telewest
Kabelbetreiber
http://www.telewest.co.il
http://www.flextech.co.uk

Telewest Communications wants to provide the best telly in the UK. With more more than 1 million cable subscribers, it is the UK`s #2 cable TV operator (behind NTL). The company also provides phone lines to 1.6 million residential customers and about 62,000 business customers. It also offers data communications, Internet access, and interactive services. Telewest has expanded into content by buying TV and Internet content firm Flextech. US-based programming giant Liberty Media owns about 25% of Telewest and Microsoft owns about 24%. Cable operator United Pan-Europe Communications (UPC) will gain Liberty`s stake as part of a deal between Liberty and UPC parent UnitedGlobalCom.


NTL
Kabelbetreiber, t-DTV
http://www.ntl.com/broadcast/default.asp
http://www.ntl.com/interactive-tv/you-me/default.asp
http://www.askntl.com/internet/tvinternet/default.asp
http://www.askntl.com/seen-on-tv/heads/heads.asp
NTL has become the UK`s #1 cable TV operator with its purchase of the residential cable business of Cable & Wireless Communications. Besides offering cable TV, NTL provides local and long-distance telephone service and Internet access over its cable and fiber-optic networks. Overall, the company has more than 3 million cable and telephone subscribers in the UK and Ireland and about 1.4 million cable customers in Switzerland and France. Other offerings include leased lines, frame relay, and other corporate data services; wholesale Internet access for ISPs; and TV and radio broadcast transmission services. France Telecom owns a 25% stake in NTL.


ONDigital
Terrestrischer Digital-TV Provider
http://www.Ondigital.co.uk

ONdigital is the first company in the world to launch a digital terrestrial television (DTT) service. That means we deliver multi-channel TV and interactive services into the home through an ordinary TV aerial.

ONdigital was created by its two shareholders Carlton and Granada when they were granted a licence to operate in December 1997.

Carlton Communications and Granada Media Group are the two largest independent television broadcasters in the UK. ONdigital is an independent company with separate premises.

Launching its service to customers on 15 November 1998, it is now a company employing over 1,500 people with a growing subscriber base.


Open/BskyB
SAT Provider
http://www.sky.com
http://www.open.com

The lofty British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB) is the UK`s #1 pay-TV provider. BSkyB distributes programming to 4.5 million direct-to-home (DTH) satellite subscribers. Its entertainment, news, and sports channels reach another 4.5 million viewers through wholesale distribution, including more than 600,000 in Ireland. The firm is transitioning to all-digital satellite service: 3.6 million of its DTH subscribers use the digital service. It also offers interactive TV services, holds broadcast rights to the leading football (soccer) leagues in England and Scotland, and has minority stakes in several clubs. Sky Global Networks, an affiliate of News Corp. (controlled by BSkyB chairman Rupert Murdoch), owns 38% of BSkyB.


Yes Television
ADSL-Provider
http://www.yestv.co.uk

When a mystery writer sits down to pen a whodunit about the death of the video store, Yes Television will be a prime suspect. The company offers video-on-demand through high bandwidth cable networks and ADSL telephone lines. Viewers can choose among movies, selected TV programming, music videos, or sporting events whenever they want; subscribers can stop the action, rewind, or fast-forward as if they`d popped a video in a VCR. Yes operates in UK cities Cardiff, Hull, and Manchester and is planning to enter Asia through an investment in Broadcasting Network Thailand. The company has video agreements with Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers, and Disney. Founded in 1995, Elmsdale Media owns the company.


Videonetworks
ADSL Provider
http://www.videonetworks.co.uk
http://www.homechoice.co.uk/


Watching TV at specific times, cable companies digging up the roads -- both passé? Video Networks Limited (VNL) thinks so, offering video-on-demand and other broadband interactive services over a customer`s regular copper telephone line. Using VNL`s digital TV Homechoice service and its library of hundreds of movies, music videos, and television programs, customers can choose when they want to see a program; start, stop, or go forward or backward during a program; or watch a program as many times as they want. Other services include educational products; high-speed, no dial-up Internet access; interactive home banking, insurance, and shopping; an on-screen health and fitness club; and on-screen games and entertainment.


Weitere kleinere Unternehmen die in nächster Zukunft ihr Engagement ausbauen werden:

Kingston Vision
http://www.kitv.co.uk

Diva TV
http://www.divatv.co.uk

Freebox
http://www.free-box..co.uk

to be continued..

Dazu hier noch ein Artikel



Digital TV in the UK
May 2000
The last week of March 2000 saw the launch of the first nationwide interactive television advertisement in the UK on the Open platform backed by BskyB, the British satellite broadcaster. Just a few days earlier, the cable TV provider Telewest promised a full range of interactive television services by the summer.
NTL is buying the consumer TV interests of Cable & Wireless, making NTL the UK`s largest cable TV company in terms of territory covered. The UK ITV market is now one of the most advanced markets for interactive television in the world.
The biggest obstacle to progress is the fact that there is no standard platform for delivering interactive television. There are four main service providers - ONdigital, which uses a terrestrial broadcast network; Open, which broadcasts via the BSkyB satellite; and the cable providers NTL and Telewest. ONdigital has an MHEG-based system, the two cable providers both base their services on HTML and JavaScript, while Open has its own proprietary technology.
As a result, any advertisement designed to run on all networks in the UK would have to be remade several times in order to work on the different systems.
There is also confusion amongst potential subscribers, who find it difficult to differentiate the offer made by each platform. In theory, only the cable broadcasters are able to deliver the full potential of interactive television, as they use a relatively new, broadband network which is capable of delivering true video-on-demand. However, much of the running has been made by Open, even though it delivers its service via a combination of satellite broadcasting and local telephone lines, which are comparatively old and slow.
Open was the first broadcaster to offer a national interactive service, which launched before Christmas. It quickly demonstrated how great the potential for ITV will be. Though the service was only available through untested technology in a limited number of homes, purchases through Open quickly hit £1m a week.
The service has been rolled out quickly and Open now provides shopping, banking and email services to 2.8m subscribers.
Telewest announced the launch of Active Digital, which will offer email, home banking, shopping, and interactive entertainment via the TV by this summer. These services will be available to all Telewest`s 110,000 digital subscribers, helping it increase its subscriber base to a predicted 500,000 by the end of this year.
Once NTL has absorbed the former Cable and Wireless network, it will have a subscriber base that already includes 2.2m homes and the potential to sign up a further 10m. However, it has been slower to launch its services - estimates suggest that interactive services will be available to around 250,000 digital subscribers by the end of this year.
ONdigital and Open will benefit from the widespread introduction of ADSL lines by UK telecoms providers. These will reach 80% of the UK population within three years. They offer broadcasters a broadband line to homes independent of the existing cable network, giving them the potential to provide significantly improved levels of interactivity.
. Most analysts agree that advertising will be crucial to the future of ITV. Last year, Forrester Research was forecasting that the total ITV market would be worth US $20bn by 2004, of which $2bn would be subscriptions, $7bn commerce, and more than half, $11bn, would be advertising revenue.
Unilever`s decision to run the UK`s first interactive television advertisement represents a milestone. The ad, for Chicken Tonight sauces, offers the opportunity to receive a recipe book and a money-off voucher, with the option to see recipes on Open.
It exploits one of the key strengths of ITV technology for advertisers - the fact that all the data on viewers is already held in the system, The viewer simply clicks on an icon to receive the on-screen offer.
Today, more than 3m households in the UK have access to digital TV, and this is forecast to rise quickly. A recent Government predicts that there will be over 8m digital subscribers by 2003 and 18.5m by 2008. Broadcasters hope that the growth in digital will mean that they can switch off the analogue television signal by 2010. The recent £22 billion auction of bandwidth to facilitate G3 telecoms means that the analogue frequencies released by the switch to digital should fetch even more and will encourage the government to find a solution to the problem of legacy analogue sets.
Author: Mark Priestley, Carat London
[e-mail] +44 x20 7430 6000

[francoir]

Lieber Oliver H.,

Du bist einer der Wenigen (im Moment sogar der Einzige) derentwegen es noch Freude macht, das WO-Board aufzusuchen.
Beim Lesen der anderen Postings überkommt mich meist ein unangenehmes Gefühl, teilweise eine Abscheu und völlige Unverständniss zu der Art und Weise, mit was und vor allen Dingen mit welchem Umgangston hier manch einer sein Mitteilungsbedürfnis stillen möchte.
Gerade Deine Neutralität gegenüber Metabox, die wirklich ehrlich rüberkommt, ohne irgendwelches Basher oder Pushergehabe und der Informationsgehalt deiner Postings lassen noch Hoffnung auf Evolution menschlichen Denkens gegenüber der Rückkehr zu dem steinzeitlichen, keulenhaften Auftreten anderer hier aufkommen.
Auch wenn Metabox versagt, wird Dir sicherlich keiner den Vorwurf machen können, Du hättest Unwissende in die Aktie hineingetrieben, aber für Deine vorbildliche Berichterstattung und der Möglichkeit, uns daran teilnehmen zu lassen, sollte Dir schon jetzt der erste Preis für die Korrektheit in Person verliehen werden.
Das musste einmal gesagt werden.