The Shanghai Expo is still months away from opening, but Motorola announced this week that it has already set up a showcase TD-LTE network for the spring and summer event. The successful demonstration this week included the world’s first indoor, over-the-air TD-LTE data sessions. As announced last fall, Motorola will be the main provider of TD-LTE coverage during the Shanghai Expo, and will show the world’s first LTE USB adapters at the event in May.
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It’s been a week of convergence news in the television industry. Here’s a summary of the news, stats, and rumors to pop up in the last seven days.
Cablevision to test PC-to-TV service
While it’s unclear exactly how Cablevision plans to make its new media relay service work, the operator has put a stake in the ground saying it will test out technology to draw content from a consumer’s PC into the cable network, and then back out again to the TV. Inefficient method? Perhaps. Indicative of consumer demand? Certainly.
More than 25% of TVs sold in January are now connected to the Internet
Want some IP video on your TV screen? According to iSuppli, more than 25% of the folks who bought TVs last month already have it. Not that all of their TVs have direct hook-ups. Many of those connections come through game consoles, set-tops, Blu-ray players and the like. Many of them, in other words, come with some sort of paid IP video service attached.
Hulu to go subscription?
Speaking of subscription service, rumors are circulating again that Hulu may move to a subscription-based video model. This seems likely from a business perspective. Why? Subscription services work, and you can’t make and distribute TV content for free. (See Mark Cuban’s latest rant)
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With plenty of Motorola corporate news circulating, this seems an appropriate time to hear from one high-level exec with significant tenure in the company. I spoke to Senior Vice President John Burke a few weeks back about the set-top business; where it is today, how it got here, and where it’s headed. Here are his answers to some of the questions I posed.
When Motorola first started developing set-tops, was there any indication of where the set-top business was headed?
When we started focusing on set-top development in the mid-1990s, it was all about the move from analog to digital television, and looking back on it, there were clear signs as to where the industry was heading. Cable, for example, could carry up to 80 channels at that point, but with the launch of satellite TV there was an even greater demand for more content, and that was the catalyst for the digital migration and for many of the innovations that have brought us to where we are today. I don’t believe, however, that we would have thought when we announced our 50 millionth digital entertainment device shipment three years ago that we would hit the 100 millionth milestone quite so quickly.
What do you consider to be the most significant set-top innovation over the years?
Hands down, it’s the DVR. The DVR (digital video recorder) changed the way people watch TV – it’s all about content on your terms. That said, there are other advancements that have also been incredibly important. The development of effective content security systems made it possible, for example, to introduce premium channels like HBO and Showtime. And multiple tuners made it possible to record one show while watching another. It was Motorola, by the way, that was the first company to bring a dual-tuner HD DVR to market. And two-way functionality brought about pay-per-view and then video-on-demand. The market just keeps accelerating the pace of innovation.
What surprises you about the set-top business in 2010?
The speed of change and innovation. The industry knows that the old TV paradigm doesn’t work anymore. The DVR showed that people want control over their TV watching experience, and that demand for control is only growing. It’s become a cliché, but consumers want access to content anytime, anywhere, and on any device. That’s a threat to the old business models, but it also creates huge opportunities.
People have predicted the death of the set-top for years. Why do you think the Motorola business has not only survived, but continued to grow?
Even 10 years ago people were talking about the death of the set-top, but the truth is that set-tops continue to evolve. One important thing to remember, however, is that the set-top is only part of an end-to-end video delivery system. From a Motorola perspective, we’ve focused on that entire delivery chain, and we’ve been very successful so far – from video encoding, to security, and transport over a wide variety of broadband networks.
New types of set-tops for over-the-top video have exploded on to the market in the past year. What do you think of this trend?
It’s just yet another example of consumer appetite for on-demand programming, and it’s why operators are looking to blend more on-demand content with traditional television offerings. For a while the industry assumed that only younger consumers were interested in new kinds of video experiences, but as we showed in our recent Media Engagement Barometer study, all generations are interested in media experiences on their own terms.
The television industry is changing rapidly. Where do you think set-tops and video delivery in general will go from here?
If the first decade of this millennium was about transitioning from the analog to the digital era, we believe this decade is defined as the Internet Era of TV. In the Internet Era it’s all about content (on your terms), community, and control. We foresee great innovation across the industry especially in video delivery over the next few years. Exciting times lay ahead.
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Although LTE is just getting off the ground, the word on the street (already) is that LTE on its own may not be enough to satisfy wireless broadband demand. At the same time, according to an article in The Independent, mobile broadband sales in some mature markets are not growing fast enough to support major capex spending for 4G upgrades. Put those two issues together, and you come up with the conclusion that LTE isn’t a broadband panacea. By itself, LTE isn’t enough.
Motorola’s Bruce Brda spoke on the topic of combining wireless broadband technologies while in Barcelona last week. In the short video below, you can hear his argument that operators will need a mix of technologies including FDD LTE and TD-LTE, WiMAX, and even Wi-Fi. It’s a big change from carrier models in the past.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPUSRco4Bt8]
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Taking a break from the 4G coverage for a moment, Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha made some interesting remarks at Mobile World Congress this week in an interview reported by the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Regarding plans for a new company made up of Motorola’s Home and Mobile Devices businesses, Jha referenced technology in the works making it possible to share features between set-tops and smartphones. From the WSJ article:
One of the first elements to be shared will be Motoblur, currently a feature on newer Motorola phones that combines address books with email and social-networking accounts. The company is testing Motoblur on TV boxes, where it will likely appear this year, though that could slip to 2011, Mr. Jha said in an interview.
You may remember that Motorola showed Motoblur on a set-top both at CES this year, and at SCTE last fall. Jha’s comments indicate that the demos may now be considered prelude to an actual product. Twitter on the TV is not unique, but integrating data from your set-top with social networking platforms in a more holistic way is something new. As I wrote back in November:
In the future you could forward a synopsis link to Twitter followers as you set a program to record, or post a widget on your Facebook page highlighting the TV shows on your schedule for the week. Once that information was embedded, you could riff off in a million directions. You could get and share: info on which friends are watching the same shows, news about related live events, updates on a series schedule, invitations to online contests and other activities, or even episode clips from the season so far.
Sanjay Jha also mentioned in the WSJ interview that set-tops and smartphones could eventually even share a common operating platform.
Interesting.
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You can follow along with all the news coming out of Motorola at Mobile World Congress over on the MWC digital press kit site. However, in case you’ve missed any news to date, here are some highlights from the press announcements I haven’t yet covered here. A little GSM, WiMAX and LTE all rolled into one.
New Dual-Mode Radios Optimized for LTE and GSM/E-Edge
Early on Monday Motorola announced new dual-mode base station radios designed to support migrations from GSM to LTE. The new CTU8m series radios support up to eight GSM carriers, or a combination of up to eight GSM and LTE carriers. At the same time, Motorola also introduced a new next-gen 19″ rack-mountable GSM base-band unit, the Horizon 2G-nx BBU.
Service Quality Optimization for Mobile Operators
On the second day of MWC, Motorola launched service quality optimization (SQO) as part of its global professional services portfolio. The SQO service includes analysis of end-user data streams, performance measurement against key quality indicators (KQI), and adjustments to both network elements and business processes. Given the complexity involved in managing diverse network environments, the new SQO offering is well-timed for operator migrations to 4G technology.
FITEL Awards Motorola a Second WiMAX Contract
Also today, Motorola announced a new WiMAX contract with First International Telecom (FITEL) in Taiwan. It’s the second WiMAX contract with FITEL, following an initial WIMAX deployment back in 2008. WiMAX rolls on.
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I’ve written here several times about the challenges and opportunities cable operators face in migrating to IP delivery. There is a significant parallel in the mobile world. Mobile operators are also looking at a transition to IP with new 4G networks. Forget the global recession. Forget the fact that it would be nice (for operators) to avoid upgrades for a while. Consumer demand for mobile broadband is growing at a staggering pace. And mobile service providers have to manage spectrum allocation, juggling new technology with old, and the challenge of providing end-to-end QoS in a diverse network environment.
Motorola knows that about 70% of incumbent providers will operate an overlay LTE system in the transition to 4G. What does this mean? It means these operators have to introduce new technology while still maintaining and integrating with legacy 2G and 3G networks. They have to tailor LTE coverage and re-use existing 2G and 3G assets. They have to migrate to a high-speed data transport network. And they have to transition to a single future-proof core that may need to support 2G, 3G, and LTE technology. It’s a very big job.
At Mobile World Congress this week, Motorola has talked to a number of industry executives about managing the LTE migration. There’s no silver bullet for the process, but there are ways to make it easier and to set up a clear migration path. These are the discussions that are happening now. Join in.
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Missing out on the Barcelona experience? Not to worry, between blog and Twitter coverage, it’s not difficult to stay up to date on MWC happenings. And in case you’re the visual kind, here are some photos from the show floor. Check out the LTE cafe in the second thumbnail below. The white box on the left includes a live, working Motorola LTE chipset. Meanwhile the photo of men in suits includes the Russian Minister of Telecommunications, Igor Shegolev. He’s the one right under the sign for optimization services.
UPDATE: I just learned that at one point today the LTE network running in the cafe hit 166 Mbps. That’s just two Mbps off the theoretical max. Lots of buzzing around the Motorola booth when that happened.
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LTE is barely on the radar yet for consumers, but the mobile industry is dashing ahead with enhancements, trials, and even early commercial deployments. As part of a series of news releases out of Mobile World Congress, Motorola today announced its second-generation LTE platform with the launch of the WBR 700 Series LTE eNodeB. The WBR 700 Series supports FDD and TD-LTE solutions and has an LTE baseband with up to four times the capacity of the average LTE baseband on the market today. Greater capacity means higher throughput, and ultimately that means a mobile broadband experience akin to today’s fixed-line broadband service.
It’s interesting to note that even though the new WBR 700 Series is labeled as second-gen LTE equipment, it can also properly be called fourth-generation OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) technology. As explained in years past, Motorola is building on existing WiMAX solutions also based on OFDM.
More details on the WBR 700 Series:
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Motorola has been running LTE field trials for some time now, but on the eve of Mobile World Congress, the company has just announced a commercial LTE deployment with Zain in Saudi Arabia. Unlike Motorola’s TD-LTE work with China Mobile, the Zain network will be based on FDD LTE in the 2.6GHz frequency band. It will overlay the operator’s existing 3G network, with deployment beginning in the capital city of Riyadh starting in Q2.
This is not the first time Motorola and Zain have worked together. Over fifteen years, the companies have partnered in Nigeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan. It’s that relationship plus Motorola’s five-plus years of experience with OFDM-based technology (first with WiMAX, then moving into LTE) that sealed the deal.
Notable points:
For more info on Motorola’s 4G technology, visit the Motorola 4G digital press kit.
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