Q&A: Peter Charissé, ANGA COM

Peter Charissé

Peter Charissé, managing director of ANGA COM, talks to Digital TV Europe about new features at this year’s event and the challenges facing service providers in the German market and internationally.

 What would you identify as the main highlights of ANGA COM this year?

With 450 exhibitors from 36 countries we have already reached the same booking level as in the previous year. Several leading exhibitors, including Eutelsat, Huawei, and Deutsche Telekom, will significantly expand their presence.

Let us look at the conference track: for the first time the CEOs of Vodafone Germany and RTL will join the opening session. One highlight of the international congress track, with 13 panels in English, will be the upgraded International Television & Broadband Summit. The speakers include Michel Azibert, CCO and deputy CEO, Eutelsat, Wilhelm Dresselhaus, spokesperson of the management board, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Bruce McClelland, president, network and cloud and global services, Arris, Xinbing Tang. CTO of Huawei fixed network product line, Dirk Wierzbitzki, EVP products and marketing, Swisscom, and Dr. Dirk Wössner, president, consumer business unit from Canada, Rogers Communications, from Canada.

The international highlight of the second day will be a keynote of the European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society. Günther Oettinger will speak about broadband investments and connectivity in the Gigabit Society. The European Commissioner’s speech is open for all visitors and exhibitors even without a congress ticket.

What key themes do you think will feature at the ANGA COM conference sessions?

Several panels will focus on new TV features and OTT: Personalised TV: Recommendation Engines and NetPVR; TV goes App: Multiscreen and TV Everywhere; and New TV Advertising and Big Data. Another top-class panel deals with the competition between mobile TV and the next generation of terrestrial television – DVB-T2 – which will begin operating in Germany one week before the opening of ANGA COM.

A further international highlight is the new ANGA Overseas Panel. Here, experts will give a market overview and speak about TV distribution in the Middle East, India and Africa. This panel will take place in the Speakers’ Corner which is located directly in the exhibition hall 10.1 and can be attended by all exhibition visitors and congress attendees. No additional registration is required.

How significant is ANGA COM’spartnership with the ISBE and SCTE in the US and what are your goals?

The globalisation of our industry has created a growing need for an exchange of technical skills across borders. The SCTE/ISBE with its high expertise is the perfect transatlantic partner for us. We highly appreciate the exchange of know-how, topics and speakers, as this will surely make our event more international than ever.

What would you identify as the key priorities for the cable industry in Germany and internationally this year?

We are facing more and more competition for our linear TV offerings from OTT operators. Therefore it is a big challenge to improve our cable access products with new interactive features like replay TV, multiscreen and app TV.

What are the main regulatory and commercial challenges facing the cable industry currently? What solutions are emerging?

The legal framework for media offerings has not kept pace with technological development. We still lack a level playing field, especially in the copyright law where there is a growing need for an extension of the licensing rules for cable television to time-shifted TV functionality. In essence, it is just a matter of adapting copyright law in line with the changing usage in the digital world. Therefore it would be enough to extend the scope of the Satellite and Cable Directive of the European Union to new TV forms. There is no reason why the usage of digital video recorders in set-top boxes is permitted but not a similar network-based service, where rights-holders and broadcasters would continuously receive a share of the usage fees.

ANGA COM takes place at the Köln Messe from June 7-9. Click here for more details.