NBN to deliver quality video and interactivity to consumers

NBN Co today released more detail on the product feature that is designed to enable retail service providers to deliver high-quality, high-definition video channels over the fibre network.

NBN Co Head of Product Development and Sales, Jim Hassell said: „NBN Co is developing a multicast product feature that enables the delivery of quality video and interactive services by any NBN retail service provider to any fibre-connected consumer.

“Multicast will be available as an add-on feature to our fibre offering giving service providers the opportunity to introduce very attractive and competitive triple-play voice, broadband and video content to any of their fibre-based customers. It is designed to assist retail service providers to offer new more specialist content such as non-English speaking channels, high-definition TV, 3DTV, interactive services and social TV – efficiently and cost-effectively.

“This should give consumers more choice and freedom to select the content they want, and it should encourage the development and production of new content by creating a more diverse market of service providers who want to purchase content to broadcast.

“We are already starting to see some of our largest electronic retailers marketing 'smart', internet-connected TVs. Our multicast feature will enable the full potential of these types of devices to emerge and to possibly speed the adoption of the new technology.”

By carrying video content as a single stream as far into the network as possible before replicating this content for consumers, the multicast product feature is able to deliver backhaul savings, compared to delivery via multiple unicast streams, and brings opportunities for innovative video and interactive content across the NBN.

The Multicast Access Virtual Circuit is priced at $5 per month for the first 20Mbps allocation and can be ordered in additional increments. To provide a multicast service, a service provider will also need to purchase a Multicast Domain starting at $250 per month per 100Mbps at each point of interconnect they serve.

While the multicast feature will initially be available on the fibre access network, NBN Co may offer multicast over the wireless and satellite access networks in the future.

NBN Co has released an information paper for industry with more details, and is seeking industry feedback. NBN Co plans to release the multicast feature to the market in the middle of next year following a testing period due to begin at the end of this year. In the interim, service providers will be able to make IPTV and video on demand services available through the uni-cast capability of the network.

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Rhonda Griffin
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