Hi amigacooke, thanks for the discussion. The demise of ITV in the UK certainly contributed to the success of BSkyB. ITV paid too much for the football rights and their smart card system was hacked. The business model was bloated from the start and then easily eroded creating a no-win situation -- except for the competition. Speaking of which there is a good article about Murdoch
here. BSkyB had fertile ground to make their approach and excellent execution (check out those year end profits ;-) ). BTW, This article should also be read by others who may be underestimating this DTV STB market at the price point we are delivering hardware to it (contrast that for example with the super STB from Pace at 350 £!).
Just to carry this discussion a bit farther, we are not targeting the UK. Our customer is based in continental Europe and has a pricing strategy that tells us they understand the market and their customers. We will not be posting that information. :-) Nevertheless, to continue with an example from BSkyB (please correct if necessary) -- adult channels cost a whopping £5 per night, while sports are on different channels for which you must pay separately (Sky sports 1, 2 and 3). On the smart cards side, BSkyB collects data via a modem (very big brother we think) and apparently logs all web pages you visit and records all outgoing emails and stores them in a secret file which is *very* well hidden. As far as we can tell, the BSkyB boxes in the UK are completely non-standard. They use WAP which may sound off the wall given it's designed for mobile phones but being designed for low end systems with low bandwidth makes it perfect for STBs. There's a lot of technology available now that supports WAP development. We actually will have a WAP stack/Browser ready.
Remember, we will not integrate the uplink initially to reduce cost (we will have a WAP portal for people to use mobile phones as an unlink though and a handy little connector to support that process). We have a phased modular strategy that adds functionality akin to the base station of a radio/remote phone designed normally for home use. The receiver chip for the radio signal will have been already introduced in the STB (as is found in the home handset associated with the base station that anchors the system in the home with power and telephone line connection -- incidentally overcoming the no telephone connection near the TV problem). On the smart card side, we will use them to unscramble parts of the signal already there. This can be done on a subscriber or pre-paid basis (for anonymity or one game at a time). The signal itself can *also* be data driven to individually addressable STBs. Here smart cards can be further used as recording devices. In our case viewing data can be exchanged for movie credits...;-) Of course, this flexibility can be promotion/advertising oriented too... :-)
Finally, legion, take at look at the
Genesi website (please forgive the missing UK flag reference -- just noticed that problem with our "English" reference :-D ). You will find plenty of innovation there hidden behind those products. We have hinted at many things before and if you take a further look you can see a strategy evident.
We are overwhelmed this week by events that have nothing to do with Genesi. This will probably be the only post until next week. Nevertheless, we tried to be as informative as possible because we truly appreciate the discussion.
Best regards,
Raquel and Bill :-)
Genesi
