Australia scores Ericsson's AsiaPac TV centre

By Stuart Corner
Monday, 09 November 2009 15:37

Strategy

Ericsson has opened a TV centre in Melbourne to support customer deployments of IPTV and mobile TV services throughout the Asia Pacific region.

The centre, one of three globally, will have a staff of 80 comprised of consultants, solution architects and integrators. Its technology capabilities cover service layer, network infrastructure, video headend, content distribution, digital rights management, TV applications and set-top box integration. It will support ISPs, telcos, broadcasters and media companies around the region.

Ericsson is banking on a boom market for IPTV services: it cites a Heavy Reading forecast that, globally, the number of IPTV subscribers will triple to 90 million by 2013 as a result of new high speed broadband network rollouts, like Australia's NBN.

And in a September 2008 white paper, sponsored by Ericsson, IDC Australia argued that all Australian broadband ISPs needed an IPTV plan and it "conservatively" forecast 25 million IPTV subscribers in Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, by the end of 2012.

According to Ericsson Australia CEO, Jacqueline Hey, : "Broadband networks are changing the nature of TV and the way we consume TV services. IPTV is still in its infancy and the Asia-Pacific region is poised for major growth in this segment, and the new Ericsson TV Centre in Melbourne will play a leading role in driving the ongoing evolution of IPTV."

Ericsson has also aligned with the recently established Institute for the Broadband Enabled Society (IBES) at Melbourne University and says its TV centre "will be an integral part of the institute's work."

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