Telstra gets Fox-y for on-demand movies pilot
Fancy immediately available movies on your mobile device with no download delay?
We’re all becoming increasingly addicted to streaming video on mobile devices, but that creates some significant challenges, from the cost of that data to the quality of the network needed to maintain an ongoing high quality stream.
At Mobile World Congress, Telstra has announced that it will trial a delivery solution in partnership with Ericsson and Twentieth Century Fox that will allow consumers instant access to movies for purchase or rental. Content will be DRM-encoded to limit the reach of piracy.
The service will utilise Ericsson’s cloud-based infrastructure alongside Telstra’s LTE-B capabilities to deliver movie content directly to consumer devices. Telstra CEO Andy Penn stated that "The solution will use Telstra’s Media Optimised Network, including LTE-B capability to pre-position content, and therefore have limited impact on overall network traffic with little to no additional infrastructure cost."
Sounds like something you’d like to be part of? You may have to wait, with Telstra announcing that all it’s doing at this stage is a trial of the concept, with a "closed number" of Telstra, Fox and Ericsson customers being provided with mobile devices and a trial app to test out the services. Content delivery is intended to be in 1080P, with titles "pre-positioned" (or in other words, fundamentally downloaded) to consumer devices. Telstra hasn’t stated which devices it is using for the trial.
It’s an interesting play for Telstra, as it is increasingly positioning itself as a strong media player in the Australian market, and also given it expects video traffic to form up to 75% of its network traffic by 2020.
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