He then made it clear that while the set-top box is the essential device for supporting these aims today, Deutsche Telekom will have to take a position directly on the glass [television set] itself, eventually, with less reliance on HDMI inputs. The company will have to enable a virtual STB scenario in collaboration with Smart TV makers – meaning an operator app replaces the STB, and this app is the default content and UI experience that someone sees when turning on their Smart TV (if that home is a customer of the Pay TV provider). If this cannot be achieved, DT will need to follow Sky’s example and launch their own Smart TVs.

Throughout his presentation, Bandeira spoke on behalf of Deutsche Telekom, outlining its plan and thinking. But this felt like his vision for an industry, too. His belief that a Pay TV provider must be present directly on the television glass chimes with the philosophy at Sky, which has already taken matters into its own hands with the revolutionary Sky Glass (a Sky OS/UX embedded into a private-labelled Smart TV designed and retailed by Sky). But where Sky moved directly to ‘building’ its own televisions, Bandeira made it clear that DT wanted to avoid this if, possible, and would first seek the Smart TV partnerships that would support the virtual STB model.

Bandeira began by outlining the challenges a Pay TV provider like Deutsche Telekom faces. “We are still in the middle of a transformation cycle that involves a shift from linear to non-linear consumption and also a very important change from service provider centric to content centric. Content brands that used to have us in the middle, as a broker, try to go direct-to-consumer to deliver their services.

“This is a fundamental change and something operators must be aware of as we prepare our TV services for the future.”

He outlined one all-embracing principle and three pillars that will underpin the future of Pay TV. First, the principle: “We must deliver an unbreakable service with the best video and audio quality. We must do a lot of background work to support this.” Then he moved onto the pillars.

“First and foremost, aggregate, aggregate, aggregate – and when you are tired of aggregation, aggregate some more! We must have the content [that consumers want] available. This is fundamental – it is what differentiates us from the other guys who do not have that content.” He added that content is king, and today some popular content may be hosted by one streaming service, and tomorrow it could move to another. It is the Pay TV provider’s responsibility to keep track and provide the access.

“Then you need to aggregate the subscriptions, enabling ‘subscribe’ and ‘unsubscribe’ [for the multiple subscription streaming apps that are onboarded as part of the super-aggregator role]. It is one thing to have the apps [the streaming content services, within your UX] but lots of people have them, so what is your real value, because over time that [having the apps] will not be enough. You need to put smartness into your aggregation.

“In the same way that someone can subscribe [to an app] in one click, they should be able to unsubscribe in one click directly on your TV service. It is very important that we give simplicity to consumers with one single billing relationship. We should be the main touchpoint with consumers who want to take those services. We are the middleman, so we must take ownership of this position.”

Bandeira’s third pillar is content-centric discovery. “This is where we can make a huge difference. Discovery should be independent of who is delivering the content. The consumer should not have to think about where the shows are that they want to consume, whether they are in Netflix, Disney or Amazon, and they might not know, anyway, but we have the answer for that.”

He pointed out that Deutsche Telekom’s focus on content aggregation, discovery and personalisation in the UI is not unique, and acknowledged that the quality of execution is key. “We do the fine-tuning based on the data, what is working and what is not working, and that is very important,” he pointed out.

Bandeira highlighted how Deutsche Telekom’s customer premise equipment strategy must align with these requirements, which led to the conclusion that the set-top box is still essential, for now. “The STB is the only place today where we can fully deliver on our vision for super-aggregation and a seamless subscribe/unsubscribe experience. I can’t do this on a third-party device. So, the STB is still central to our strategy today, but it can become less fundamental.”

The typical Pay TV operator app on a Smart TV, as seen today, is not part of the long-term CPE strategy, Bandeira revealed. “We are not happy to be just an app on an interface; I don’t want to be just an app.” He acknowledged that Deutsche Telekom’s Pay TV service (MagentaTV) is available on Smart TVs as an app, of course. [It is available on all Tizen OS Samsung Smart TVs since 2017, Sony Smart TVs running Android TV since 2015 and on all Android TV Smart TVs running Android 7, 8 and 9.] “But I am not happy to continue in this way in the future, as just an app on a Smart TV.

“If I am just an app on a Smart TV, then over time I will lose engagement with consumers because they will spend less time with me on my experience and more time with all the other apps that are available in the same UI. I can only replace the STB if I can replicate the STB experience without one, and that means I have to be the main app on the [Smart TV] ecosystem, where I contain the other apps [e.g. Netflix, Discovery, local broadcasters] in my app, as seen in my STB.”

Bandeira continued: “Being the aggregator that manages the subscribe and unsubscribe [across multiple third-party apps] is also fundamental, but this is very difficult if you are just one of the apps in the ecosystem. You have to control the experience, like you do today on the STB.”

This brought the Deutsche Telekom executive to his future CPE roadmap, because he made it clear that despite these reservations, his company does want to look beyond STBs. “Aggregating directly on the TV panel, without an STB, is the Holy Grail, and we need to do this. UIs in Smart TVs are becoming better and better. As an industry, we had a head-start on Smart TV makers, but they are catching up, and some UIs are becoming really good.

“These [Smart TV] guys are becoming our competitors with regards to aggregation, and they are well placed for this role because they have the [television] display in the customer home.”

So, how do you work around this, Bandeira asked the audience before answering for them. “We are working on two possible paths simultaneously, A and B. Either we will be successful with A, or we move to B,” he told the Connected TV World Summit audience.

“Path A is where you can broker a deal with TV providers in which you become the [primary] app. When someone buys the television, it asks if they are a Deutsche Telekom customer or if they take their Pay TV service from named competitors. If you are a Deutsche Telekom customer, you then get the Deutsche Telekom experience. We become the [primary TV] app. This is the path we would like to follow because doing [making, private-labelling, retailing] TVs is not our core business.

“But, if we are not successful on this path, we might need to go the other route, and ‘do’ televisions, in a similar way to Sky [with Sky Glass]. That is the only way you can continue to be relevant [as a Pay TV operator] in that case [where virtual STB on third-party branded Smart TVs is ruled out].”

Finally, Bandeira declared that Deutsche Telekom’s vision to be the super-aggregator and the subscriptions manager, as well as the primary content discovery agent, should not be limited to the STB today and the Smart TV (virtual STB or ‘DT Glass’) in the future. He is interested in mirroring this Pay TV role across multi-screen devices too, which requires a promotion for the classic operator TV Everywhere mobile/laptop app.

Noting that multiscreen devices are especially important to younger generations, he asked: “Why not apply the same vision to the smartphone or tablet, with an app that aggregates other apps? Of course, you can’t be the super-app on ecosystems that Google and Apple control, but you can still recreate the concept of an app that can aggregate other content apps and provide [unified] discovery and subscriptions [management]. That will give you service continuity between the experience you offer on a TV set and the experience you offer on these other touchpoints. This is a clear part of our vision.”

The DT executive concluded: “Our vision [for the role of Pay TV operators in future and the CPE that underpins it] puts us on a long path, and one we started a long time ago, but it is fundamental to the sustainability [economic] of the TV business, because we feel the TV ecosystem is going to become more and more challenged unless we do this. There is risk, but there is opportunity to capitalise by doing things that others cannot.”

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The collaboration between Realtek and Irdeto began earlier with Realtek’s range of RTD13xx products and has now expanded to include the latest generation RTD1319D STB SoC, supporting VVC/H.266 codec and other audiovisual technologies such as 4K advanced HDR and 3D audio. The company has added support for HDMI 2.1a features, including VRR and QMS, in response to “the increasing demand for a superior immersive video and gaming experience.”

Shane McCarthy, COO of Video Entertainment at Irdeto, said: “Irdeto is at the forefront of the super aggregator market with our 50+ years of experience securing premium content in video entertainment, and our operator heritage ensures we understand the market well. We are happy to be working with partners such as Realtek to bring new solutions to the market.”

Yee-Wei Huang, Vice President of Realtek, commented: “In the intensively competitive set-top chipset market, Realtek leaped ahead by introducing the RTD1319D – the world’s first VVC set-top chipset, suitable for both Android TV and RDK. Through our collaboration with Irdeto, and our shared vision and commitment to excellence, we are extremely proud to present this advanced product to the market.”

According to Amino, the solution has enabled Vodafone Iceland to adopt advanced service features for its TV service, and to deliver a continually evolving service for its customers while maximising its STB investment. The complete solution also includes SaaS platform Amino Engage, which allows the telco to “streamline” its customer service and leverage management tools to reduce operational costs. Vodafone Iceland has previously run a multi-screen OTT video service powered by Amino’s sister company, 24i.

Donald McGarva, CEO of Amino, said: “It is particularly pleasing that Vodafone was already running an OTT multi-device video platform from 24i, a sister company of Amino — further evidence that customers are increasingly choosing solutions from both companies.”

AminoOS will provide Vodafone Iceland with the device agility necessary to keep its investment relevant to the rapidly changing needs of the marketplace. Our Engage solution will also help Vodafone to reduce support costs and device lifecycle management – dramatically reducing the timescales of rolling out upgrades and new advanced services.”

Earlier this month, Amino partnered with Hong Kong-based Pay TV service Now TV (which is owned by HKT – the largest telco in the HK market), to integrate its IPTV service with OTT streaming services such as HBO GO and Netflix.

Vewd products include:

• Vewd Core, an HTML5 rendering engine for streaming devices.
• Vewd OS, a full Smart TV OS built upon Vewd Core, featuring UX, pre-packaged onboarded apps and app management.
• Vewd OpX, a platform-independent, hybrid linear/streaming solution for STBs and televisions (ready for HbbTV and ATSC 3.0)
• Vewd Atom, a lightweight client for low-cost IP connected STBs, both new and legacy (giving the ability to easily upgrade legacy devices).

Vewd Software has main offices in Norway, Sweden, Taiwan and Poland. The Vewd management team will remain in place as part of the $109M deal, and over 275 people become part of Xperi.

“Xperi’s TiVo product offerings, when integrated with Vewd’s suite of streaming platform solutions, will help accelerate and scale the deployment of TiVo OS for connected TVs and expand our video-over-broadband offerings,” says Jon Kirchner, CEO at Xperi. “Vewd’s global reach and expertise in providing support to content owners, TV OEMs, and SoC partners as they deploy middleware and OS solutions across various devices is tremendously valuable and further paves the way for additional monetisation opportunities as we expand our global footprint of streaming devices.

“The acquisition of Vewd also strengthens the growth outlook of our product business as we prepare to separate our IP and product businesses this fall. We expect incremental revenue of $10 million in the second half of this year, followed by substantially higher revenue and a positive EBITDA contribution in 2023,” Kirchner added.

Aneesh Rajaram, Vewd’s CEO, comments: “We’re excited to join the Xperi family and look forward to combining the experience, skills and scale of both organisations to deliver new innovations for our clients. Together, we’re set to deliver more engaging experiences to the millions of viewers globally who enjoy TV shows, sports, and the movies they love through our platform.”

Phil Cardy, Vice President, International PLM, Home Networks, CommScope, said: “Telenor Sverige is a leading service provider that wants to grow its business with a new video offering. By using a solution powered by Android TV from the Home Networks’ business, Telenor Sverige will deliver a great viewing experience to its customers with its own branded user interface using a solution that is compact and easy to install.”

Hanna Idstam, Manager TV and Media, Telenor Sverige, commented: “We are excited to offer our customers a new TV and entertainment experience by deploying CommScope’s innovative set top solution. CommScope’s expertise in deploying solutions powered by Android TV enabled us to deliver a rich, entertainment offering that our customers have come to expect.”

The telco also collaborated with 24i – a streaming solutions provider – on the STB, who provided the software platform to power the set top’s live and on-demand viewing experience. The software platform also supports unified search and single sign-on and, according to the companies, gives Telenor “the freedom to build and design its own user interfaces.”

Dr. Neale Foster, CEO, 24i, said: “24i is delighted to support our friends at Telenor Sverige with its on-going service enhancement, including the rollout of this new generation of Android TV set tops, powered by the same 24i software platform that brings the Telenor Sverige customer experience to existing set tops, iOS and Android mobile phones as well as Apple TV devices.”

The set-top-box’s middleware is fully integrated with the Android TV software stack, enabling new pre-certified Android TV capabilities. Among these is Custom Over-The-Air Update which the company says “accelerat[es] the introduction of new appealing features”. Allente has also said that PVR functionality will be rollout with the deployment later in 2022.

The move represents the latest collaboration between Allente and 3SS. The Nordic Pay TV operator’s first 3SS enabled satellite and OTT service – OnePlace – was launched by Canal Digital in 2018. This new deployment adheres to the “SAFe” (Scaled Agile Framework) – a practical experience-based software development framework, brought to Canal Digital first by 3SS.

Kai-Christian Borchers, Managing Director of 3SS said, “In making its super-aggregated service available to consumers in so many ways, Allente is yet again demonstrating its abiding commitment to providing a superior entertainment experience to all subscribers, on satellite, OTT and IPTV. Allente is at the vanguard of technological innovation and customer focus, and we are extremely proud of our long and ongoing partnership.”

Jon Espen Nergård, CTO of Allente said, “We’re very excited to now offer our next-generation service to subscribers via satellite, IPTV and OTT streaming. We thank our amazing partners KAON and 3SS, and all our technology collaborators, in helping us provide our customers with a rich array of content, including their favourite apps, all wrapped in a world-class 3SS-enabled experience and delivered on KAON’s powerful STB.”

Tom Buhl, Executive Vice President of KAONMEDIA commented, “We congratulate Allente for going live with its next-gen TV offering, which is bringing a truly advanced service, abundant with top entertainment, to viewers across the Nordic region.”

Allente was established by a merger of Canal Digital and Viasat Consumer in 2020, and is owned 50/50 by Telenor Group and NENT. It provides TV and broadband services to over a million customers in Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden.

Canal+ International faced challenges partnering with another STB supplier, including providing the same quality of service across both device suppliers, as well as the number of global territories which would need specific adaptations based on their language, security and connectivity requirements, alongside other elements.

To maintain identical service across STBs, iWedia will port Canal+ International’s pre-existing software solutions to the new STB supplier, including the ‘Zapper solution’ – a Linux-based system  that supports consistent service in areas without Internet connectivity. iWedia has ensured “security requirements are in place, PVR solutions are accessible, and connected services can be made available via 3G dongles” for the new STB supplier. It will also work with Canal+ International and both suppliers on maintenance and software updates across STBs.

Jerome Trift, CANAL+ International’s CTO, said, “It was clear that this project, while necessary, would add significant complexity to our existing software solution, and we needed a reliable partner to help us. With iWedia’s extensive software integration experience in the market, we were confident that they could work with us to solve any challenges and ensure a smooth launch for our expanded service, as well as provide continued software maintenance across both STBs in the years ahead.”

Hans-Jürgen Desor, CEO, iWedia, says, “iWedia’s work on this project has certainly been complex, not least due to the diverse needs of many territories to consider… CANAL+ International invests heavily in its diverse territories, with local content that supports local cultures and affordable bouquets of services available in financially disadvantaged regions. Its customers will continue to receive a high quality and reliable service experience, whichever STB they choose.”