Carl Furgusson, Head of Strategy, Compression Business for Ericsson, answers the following industry questions prior to the 2015 CONNECTIONS Europe event taking place 10-11 November in Amsterdam:

What challenges does Europe face with rolling out new smart home & connected entertainment services?

One of the key issues that will be with us for many years is the availability of bandwidth to the subscriber. For all delivery types, the increase in demand is significantly outstripping the pace of capacity increases. Most of the data growth is driven by video traffic and so we can see the massive increase in video consumption to be one of the key causes of network congestion. At the same time, we are seeing an increasing amount of content viewed on non-TV type devices – and these in turn are increasing in size and resolution. The expectations of a consumer when watching content on these multiscreen devices is changing from the perspective of just being pleased to be able to access any video towards expecting the type of reliable and high quality viewing experience that conventional TV offers today provided seamlessly across all devices. In conjunction with this, we see a trend towards new content formats. While High Dynamic Range (HDR) is not likely to significantly impact the capacity of the delivery network, Ultra High Definition TV certainly will. Finally, the ability for operators to provide a coherent path for personalized content discovery is becoming increasingly important, along with an expectation that this must be truly agile and work across all devices.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing your company in the next 12 months? 

The biggest change happening to content itself over the next 12 months will most likely be the arrival of HDR TV. This will impact the whole of the content chain and will require some significant efforts to coordinate the standards and industry bodies to ensure that the value of the new experience is conveyed to the consumer in a consistent manner. A second, but totally different challenge, will come from working with our operator customers to transform their TV solutions and operations to work and innovate at web speed to constantly evolve the TV experience.

How will companies leverage the growth in the market in the next 12 months? What is the impact of the Internet Giants (Google, Amazon) getting involved in the market?

Ultimately, the two most important factors are: the availability of valuable content and the ability to deliver it well to the consumer. Valuable content means content rights and if internet giants want to compete effectively for high-value consumers, it will be necessary for them to pay for the content that is most valuable. Without that, the impact will likely be limited. For on-demand content, the conventional internet standards can work well, so movies, series box set, etc viewing can be a good experience. Live content, however, requires a different set of delivery network characteristics that are not easily met by conventional internet delivery technologies. In the area of live or socially live content, network operators are likely to retain a significant advantage.

Carl will be speaking at the panel session “Evolution of the Video Experience” on 10 November at 11:15.

For more information on the speakers, sponsors, or sessions at the 2015 CONNECTIONS Europe event, visit www.connectionseurope.com. 

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