Advanced service joins all-in-one-video push
By Greg O’Brien
MONTREAL – This week, Cogeco Connexion became the latest company to tell consumers if they want all of their video in one place, epico is the best place to find it.
After an extended trial period with employees (1,200 of the company’s 2,000 Canadian employees have it in their homes) and a handful of customers (over 12,000 customers now have epico), the company took the wrapper off the newest, and for now the most advanced, pay-TV system in Canada. We’re calling it that because its Android TV operator tier operating system from MediaKind gives customers direct access to the Google Play store through their set top box, along with up to 1,000 hours of cloud DVR and the ability to download content to go.
If there’s a video app on Google, you can watch it through epico. So at launch it has the usual lineup of traditional TV channels and VOD, along with Netflix, YouTube and Prime Video on offer for customers – just like other carriers do through platforms like Ignite, BlueCurve, Helix, Fibe and Optik. However, epico customers now can access Disney+ and a host of other video apps through their cable box – something none of the other providers currently offer. Thanks to the link to Google, epico can also be voice controlled through the Google Assistant.
“Many customers are asking us to have everything in one place,” Frédéric Perron, president of Cogeco Connexion, told Cartt.ca in an interview. “Their traditional TV, but also Netflix and Disney+ and YouTube and everything else, all in one place.”
However, the other, larger, traditional Canadian cable companies in Shaw, Rogers and Videotron have cast their video lot with Comcast’s X1 platform. So why did Cogeco choose MediaKind, especially when its main competitor in its Ontario and Quebec markets, Bell, uses tech from the same vendor, albeit much earlier versions?
According to Cogeco’s vice-president of products John Hargrave, the flexibility and speed at which Cogeco will be able to develop epico going forward played a big part in that. Also, it looks to him like more pay-TV companies around the world are going Android.
“What we’re seeing is a lot of global operators have moved to the Android TV platform. There’s really two camps and you start to think about where the RDK platform is going to go with X1, and then where is Android TV?” (RDK is the proprietary software bundle which powers X1 for Comcast and its licensees.)
“The second perspective was on management of the platform,” added Hargrave. “X1 is a fully outsourced, managed solution. So, Comcast does all the engineering, Comcast does all the deployment, and really the operator just sort of sits back and takes what they’re given.
“Then the concern is how effective you can be getting different kinds of products within your TV solution to market because there starts to become a little bit of a bottleneck.
“With the MediaKind solution, we felt like we were in greater control, more flexible, able to drive more product design execution, which we thought was critical.” – John Hargrave, Cogeco
“With the MediaKind solution, we felt like we were in greater control, more flexible, able to drive more product design execution, which we thought was critical. Now, when we go back to looking at our competitors in the marketplace, we have a different platform. So, even though we’re using MediaKind, the interface and the products we offer with epico is very different than what Bell is offering in the market.”
Epico is, of course, an IP-delivered product. There’s nothing of the old cable/RF delivery in it. It’s reliant on the company’s broadband service and really marks a shift for the company away from its legacy to this new way of doing things (although customers will still be able to purchase legacy cable from Cogeco, just not its former top-tier TiVo-powered service, which is being phased out).
“This really focuses Cogeco on being entertainment provider and not necessarily a TV provider. It’s a very different approach,” added Hargrave. “So as we look at cord cutting, and we look at other things, it’s… focused on providing entertainment to the customer, leveraged on a very strong backbone of our broadband.” Epico’s three packages offer Internet speeds of up to 90, 180 and 360 Mbps.
“We look at it like the foundation of a house. Broadband is the foundation, and then you build applications on top of that product and so the stronger the broadband connection, obviously the more advanced you can be on what you can connect to it.”
This is just the start for epico, too. While the company wants to repatriate customers who might have a cable box and a Roku, or an Apple TV (also an app customers can get from the Google Play store) or an Amazon Firestick, on the company’s future roadmap is an epico app which can be accessed through such devices, should customers want to select that way to subscribe.
Plus, as long as none of those OTT apps offer live TV, epico can retain an edge.
Another key to the new service is Cogeco is coming out of the gate with self-installs. In the past, the installation times for advanced TV services were measured in hours as the technicians worked on wiring to make sure everything worked and all the tech talked to each other, especially the main in-home DVR box.
Hargrave and Perron hope customers will be able to install epico on their own (important during a pandemic launch) in 15-20 minutes. There is no “main” DVR box to install since all of that storage is in the cloud. Click here to see its video guide to install.
Selling TV channels is also far different with epico. Gone right now are any theme packs or groups of channels pre-selected by Cogeco. There is the CRTC-mandated 25-channel basic and then the three epico options (below) lets customers pick 10, 20, or 30 linear TV channels as their own self-made TV lineup. Additional channels can be purchased one at a time past those levels (and premium services such as sports, where TSN and Sportsnet at $3/month each, and Crave at $10/month, fall outside the packages).
“This is not like we give you 25 or 35 channels, including some of the ones you might not like,” said Perron. “We really give the customer the opportunity to pick what they prefer.”
