Four reasons why it’s easier than ever to launch new video services

Service providers want to offer flexible video services in a simple way. Here are four reasons why they no longer have any excuses not to

I magine that one of your customers was watching a film on TV at home, but then wanted to restart watching it the next day on their tablet on the train, while connected to another company’s WiFi network. And that the day after that, they wanted a recommendation for what to watch next.

This is the kind of experience that people now expect from online video – and they are wanting more and more of it. Cisco research predicts that video will account for over 80% of internet traffic by 2020. And that it will be viewed on 11 billion connected video devices – from TVs and consoles to tablets, phones and even cars.

The key challenge for service providers is to meet the growing demand for reliable, flexible online video services, without exponentially increasing their operating costs.

Legacy systems, which provide video through a range of separate platforms and distribution networks, will struggle to meet these demands. And this is where Cisco’s next generation video technology comes in. Our Infinite Video Platform, for example, is a single cloud platform for integrated, flexible video, with four key benefits for service providers:

An unrivaled viewing experience

Above all, people want their TV service to do the simple things well. But keeping things simple in the modern world is becoming increasingly complicated.

The full system visibility and real-time analytics of the Infinite Video Platform enable you to smoothly manage the complex operations required for flexible video services. You can control and optimise how you distribute video over your managed network, deliver video over external networks (pure over-the-top (OTT)), and quickly identify and resolve potential problems.

And the data provided by the platform, together with its powerful metadata processing engine, enable you to offer personalised and responsive content discovery. The ability to act as an effective aggregator and guide is becoming increasingly critical for service providers as the sea of content, from both traditional and online sources, grows.

A world class SaaS delivery model

Customers all want different things, and what they want is always changing.

The Cisco Infinite Video Platform enables you to create services that can cater for these demands, because it uses a software as a service (SaaS) model. This removes the technical hassle from service creation, leaving you to focus on customer needs.

Its scalable cloud-based operations make it easy to launch new services, deliver them to market, and deploy new features – reducing timescales from months to minutes. And you can offer these using flexible pricing models, including subscription, advertising, skinny bundles, a la carte, and try before you buy.

One platform for all devices

People own an increasing number of devices, and they want to watch video on all of them.

The Infinite Video Platform enables you to publish content on any device and network, offering customers seamless viewing inside and outside the home. It supports the traditional way of delivering the content over a managed network to a set top box. But alongside this, you can also publish video to people’s own devices like phones and tablets (iOS and Android), PCs, Macs, OTT boxes, smart TVs and games consoles.

So service providers can extend their reach beyond broadcast or managed network environments. And content providers can reach consumers directly, via the devices they already have.

So although audiences are becoming increasingly fragmented, you can continue to engage with them – whatever their interests are, and wherever they’re located.

Uncompromising security

The division between traditional and OTT TV is crumbling. To protect their content, infrastructure and revenue in this new world, service providers will need new security technology.

Preventing piracy is among the chief concerns of service providers. If people can access your content for free, then you don’t have a business model. Yet a UK government study last year found that one in five consumers still access some online content illegally

Cisco’s uncompromising, threat-centric security technology gives you the confidence to scale your business, knowing that your content is secure.

It also helps you provide the best possible content by meeting studio requirements for supplying ultra high definition video. And being based in the cloud helps to protect your infrastructure from attacks, too.

No more excuses

If they try to create agile video services on legacy infrastructures, service providers are likely to run into problems. But thanks to these four key pillars of our next generation video technology, there are no longer any excuses. We can help you transform your entertainment offer – whether you’re an existing online TV provider, or a new entrant to the market.

Do you want to find out how you can create the agile online video services of the future? Read more about the Cisco Infinite Video Platform