MISSISSAUGA – “Cord cutters are not bad news,” said MDL Communications principal Stephen Sacks last week at the CommTech East conference in Mississauga.
It’s when you’re not watching out for them, and not knowing what they can do to, or for, your business that is the problem, he added.
After doing more than two years of research and engineering, Sacks’ company is now offering a new video service to TV carriers which features a modern user experience (no grid guide!), minimal training and setup time (for employees or customers) – and requires no set top box at all.
It’s new over-the-top AnyVid system is essentially a software overlay of a BDU’s local services riding alongside customers’ existing in-home smart technology, be that a smart TV, Roku, Apple TV, an Amazon Firestick, their iOS or Android phones or tablets and so forth.
At one time, the cable company’s headends and their connected set top boxes were the killer apps when it came to in home entertainment. Carriers and broadcasters got rich over the years connecting ever more homes to hundreds of channels with this proprietary video technology. This is diminishing. “Video is no longer the stickiest part of the business,” said Sacks. That distinction now belongs to broadband – and with faster than ever speeds and ever more people opting for unlimited data options, endless, immediate video is now available to consumers at the tap of a screen. So, video still rules, just not the way it’s been marketed, sold and received since the 1950s.
So, some people are cutting their cable cords in favour of going strictly OTT (with perhaps some over-the-air channels in the mix) and while they’re not paying for a traditional TV subscription anymore, they are remaining loyal broadband customers (which drives up costs for the operator). This is where AnyVid comes in.
Subscribers increasingly don’t want to pay the cost for the traditional cable packages, they don’t want to switch inputs on their TVs and dart in and out of various apps looking for a show to watch and they don’t want a big black box in their homes. “What they want is real time TV on all their devices,” says Sacks.
AnyVid enables that. Using the example of an Amazon Firestick setup, Sacks showed delegates that carriers can use MDL’s new service as a value-add – incorporating local TV channels, specialties and carrier VOD content into one seamless service that works on multiple devices in the home.
This means no longer having to have in-home technology to buy, then rent, then service for the customer. Since users already have the hardware in their homes the carrier, deploying AnyVid, can seamlessly and cheaply provide additional video – with no reason to roll a truck.
The user interface of AnyVid is also nothing like a traditional system. The grid-guide is gone, replaced with banners and photos and channel and show descriptions which look and feel familiar to anyone who has tried Netflix or owns a smart TV or a smart connected TV device. AnyVid also integrates OTT apps like Netflix and YouTube, and offers a re-start option for live TV, too.
It’s hoped, that for Tier 2 and 3 carriers, AnyVid would retain customers who are thinking of cutting the cord “and attract the cable never-will-bes,” added Sacks.
