The Pragmatic Innovator

What’s the easiest way to publish rich media and video-based content to mobile devices? Introducing NetRover ePublisher!

It’s been a busy month over here at Opanga (as evidenced by the lack of blog posts!)  We’ve beenaccumulating record-breaking amounts of frequent flyer miles by trekking around the globe and meeting with savvy wireless operators who are searching for ways to alleviate the impact of mobile video on their networks, and on the homefront we’ve been busy growing our operations and working to protect our ever-expanding IP portfolio.  And last (but certainly not least!), we’ve been preparing for the launch of our new NetRover ePublisher platform!

We are very excited to have officially launched NetRover ePublisher, and with good reason – we strongly feel that this is the solution that operators have been searching for to help address the challenges surrounding the impact of mobile video on wireless networks.  You see, NetRover ePublisher is based on our patented NetRover technology, which transparently delivers large file video content using only surplus network capacity.  But in addition to being extremely network friendly, NetRover ePublisher also enables operators to provide consumers with the high quality mobile video they have been craving.

NetRover ePublisher accomplishes this by pre-positioning any form of rich media, e.g. video, text, images, audio, into the mobile device memory.  Pre-positioned content from subscription-based apps offers immediate and high-quality playback without freezing or buffering. Because the content is pre-positioned into device memory, the apps are always available, even when the device is offline.

We feel that NetRover ePublisher represents a tremendous advance in video delivery optimization technologies – by offering wireless operators and media companies a complete end-to-end media publishing platform that works outside data caps, we are providing them the tools that they need to thrive and succeed in today’s media-hungry world.

Instead of working against data caps, operators now have the tool they need to thrive within the cap.   As an example, wireless operators typically offer their consumers a monthly service plan that includes voice minutes, text and a data bucket (e.g. 500MB “cap” for $25). This data cap severely limits the amount of video that a consumer will view and consequently will reduce the value of video and associated advertising.

With NetRover ePublisher, this base plan can be augmented to add a number of NetRover-enabled “channels” that would not count towards the consumer’s monthly cap. This is only possible because of Opanga’s unique network friendly distribution technology, which also offers revenue growth that complements data caps or tariffs.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about data caps (see “Is AT&T’s new 150GB DSL data cap justified?” and the capacity crunch (see “Netflix Meets Its Kryptonite”), and we are so proud to be offering a platform that helps ease the burden of these challenges.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on our news!  Feel free to leave a comment or if you require an in-depth demo or briefing, shoot us an email at smarternetworks@opanga.com.

The Most Promising Technology in 2011 that People Are Starting to Talk About

Naturally CES was primarily focused on the latest and greatest devices – tablets and other connected CE devices were definitely the darlings of the show. But the bigger story was really how Internet connectivity is changing the way people watch – and expect to watch – video content.

In fact Ryan Lawler of GigaOM writes “If there’s one thing we learned from CES this year, it’s that there’s a paradigm shift happening in the way consumers discover and access content.” He notes that cable and satellite TV is becoming more like the online TV experience. “The cable program guide will become less important as a content discovery mechanism, and personalized recommendations will become a larger part of the way that consumers find videos they want to watch.”

In other words, consumers will be “ordering” the type of content they want to watch on the device they want. Currently this content is being delivering via some type of streaming technique, such as progressive download or adaptive rate streaming (HTTP Live Streaming, etc.).

As we know these delivery techniques require a tremendous amount of bandwidth and network capacity – especially when delivering higher quality video to tablets and connected TVs. It is the network owners who carry the burden of building and managing this capacity – and maintaining a high QoE.

They are struggling to keep up with demand and cover their costs. Case in point, we recently saw Sprint increase its unlimited data plan by $10/month.

Roger Entner of Recon Analytics aptly wrote about this in FierceWireless: “Sprint had to face the economic reality of success. Data usage and hence costs have increased substantially since it introduced its Simply Everything plan and it had to adjust prices to respond to this reality.”

We feel it is only a matter of time before Verizon feels the success of the iPhone and has to drop its unlimited data plan. Now is the time the industry needs to start talking about new ways to deliver data – outside of data caps.

Of course this is the position Opanga has held for the last few years. Since 2006, we’ve been developing and commercializing our content pre-positioning solutions that are designed to help operators manage the overwhelming network burden of delivering video while at the same time providing consumers with wonderful video applications on smartphones and tablets.

Our solutions manage the flow of content over constrained networks, actively seeking out surplus network capacity to transparently pre-position content in real time to any device without causing the network congestion or degradation typical of other video applications. We have invested substantially in our intellectual property rights (IPR) in this area and will soon announce some exciting developments.

And now we are seeing other companies jumping on the content pre-positioning bandwagon. For example, Alcatel-Lucent launched its Mobile Smartloading technology late last year, which was recently recognized by Andrew Seybold for the Most Innovative Mobile Technology at the 2011 Annual Choice Awards.

We predict that see more operators and content owners will be talking about how content pre-positioning is the most promising technology in 2011. You heard it here first.

Part 4: “But How Do Operators Know What their Subscribers Want to Watch?” They’ll tell you.

As the CEO of a start-up company, I tell the story about our technology and products on a daily basis. We typically receive incredible feedback and response to our approach for video delivery optimization.

However, there is one question we are constantly asked regarding content pre-positioning: “How does the subscriber know what they want to watch?”

To answer that question, we point to the many examples of consumers making proactive decisions all the time on what content they want to consume.

Consider monthly magazine subscriptions via the US Postal service, Netflix movies by mail, eBooks delivered to a Kindle or iTunes Seasons Pass TV. All of these businesses are predicated on the consumer making a decision on what they want and subscribing to content of interest. Consumers are willing to pay for a subscription to what they want and have it delivered to them – especially when delivered in the highest possible HD quality with perfect playback every time.

We are also seeing evidence that consumers are migrating to video-based “apps,” customized applications to access the content they prefer. For example, consumers today might subscribe to CNN by purchasing and downloading the CNN app for $1.99. Likewise, a consumer may select ESPN for their sports news and information by purchasing and downloading the ESPN app.  When consumers buy and download apps they are specifying an choosing the content that they want and prefer. Pre-positioned content can transform that ESPN app into an ESPN Sports Center TV experience for Mobile – and generate a small monthly fee per customer.

These are decisions and preferences made by the consumer and align very well with pre-positioned content and revenue generation opportunities. We expect that this trend will continue in the future, especially as it pertains to viewing mobile video.  As subscribers become increasingly disgruntled with the quality of the video that is available to them, they will turn to more consistent alternatives, such as apps that utilize content pre-positioning techniques, for a consistent and high quality experience.

We believe mobile apps are more valuable to the consumer than a mobile browsing experience. Do you?