Vodafone and Allente: beyond super-aggregation

Service providers need to look beyond super-aggregation of video to integrate multiple services while catering to the needs of legacy audiences in a difficult balancing act, Connected TV World Summit attendees heard this morning.

Telco giant Vodafone is looking to expand super-aggregation beyond video, for example through its launch of Vodafone Play, a box with a high-end speaker-delivered immersive audio experience enabled by Bang & Olufsen with Dolby Atmos technology in Portugal and Ireland, according to Frank Ripple, global head of TV product at Vodafone, taking part in a panel at the summit.

Rippl’s view that operators needed to look beyond video was met with agreement by Jonas Gustafsson, CEO, Allente, on the same panel.

“Owning the big screen comes with a lot of opportunities,” said Gustafsson. He said that there was big difference between the demographic audience for Allente’s legacy satellite TV offering and its Allente Stream service.

He said bundling things like home alarms could work for the suburban-dwelling satellite TV base, while this would be less appealing for urban-dwelling Allente Stream customers.

Rippl said that Vodafone’s strategy varied in each of its markets, with a decision to opt for Android TV rather than its legacy Linux boxes in markets where it made little sense to try to strike individual deals with streaming app providers, such as Albania.

He said that using Android TV simplified integration and removed the need to manage apps, enabling Vodafone to focus on making content more accessible.

Both Gustafsson and Rippl agreed that service providers had to serve “customers that are there”, meaning older, less streaming-focused customers as well as younger groups. This meant that operators had to continue to deliver TV via a set-top and had to continue to deliver linear TV and legacy services.

Rippl said that Vodafone would be flexible in terms of how it delivered services to cater to all audiences and all territories.

Gustafsson said that older viewers were often the bill payers and these groups needed to be catered to.

He said operators needed to deliver “a bespoke proposition” and had to differentiate through “commercial excellence”.