Cisco is preaching a new gospel of video, and Telstra is its first convert

Stuart Corner
Saturday, 15 January 2011 15:10

Opinion and Analysis

Cisco says we should be able to access video-based contenet and services anywhere at anytime transferring these seamlessly from device to device. Telstra agrees.

At CES in Las Vegas earlier this month Cisco president and CEO, John Chambers, fronted the press to announce the next grand vision in Cisco's ever expanding portfolio of grand visions. http://socialviewing.cisco.com/index.html?room=603 In the accompanying press release service provider endorsement for the grand vision came from none other than Telstra's David Thodey. Telstra's competitors should heed this as an early warning.

Specifically what Cisco announced at CES was Videoscape, billed as "a comprehensive TV platform for service providers that brings together digital TV and online content with social media and communications applications to create a new, truly immersive home and mobile video entertainment experience."

Videoscape, Cisco said, was "part of Cisco's overall video strategy to provide the next generation of TV that is simpler for consumers, and transforms the market opportunity for service providers." Cisco said it was "working with several major global service provider customers, including Telstra, to enable next-generation video experiences through the Videoscape platform."

In the dull-as-ditchwater language that characterises Cisco's - and most large corporates' - press releases Videoscape does not sound overly exciting. Thodey's comments were somewhat more illuminating. "We see tremendous opportunity with IP video services that offer consumers interactive, Internet-like experiences using both the TV and the PC."

Thodey explained: "We worked with Cisco to deploy a content delivery network that quickly proved to be a key differentiator for Telstra, and means we can provide products and services with a more consistent and reliable video experience to multiple devices.

"Our CDN supports the breadth and depth of content that gives our customers choice and reliability to download and access their favourite movies and programs to the TV using our T-Box media player, through direct download to the TV, or via the PC."

Last week's announcements that BigPond TV is, or will soon be, available direct to Samsung and LG TVs http://www.itwire.com/your-it-news/entertainment/44309-bigpond-tv-comes-to-samsung-and-lg-tvs that are Internet-capable is just one small component of this strategy. But the vision of which Videoscape is merely the first manifestation is much, much bigger than that.

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