Proximus turns to Ericsson to provide multiscreen TV service

Proximus’ director of consumer products and solutions said equipment vendor Ericsson is powering a new multi-screen TV app being launched by the company.

Jean-Marc Capitaine said Proximus’ use of Ericsson’s Multiscreen Headend product is enabling Belgium’s largest mobile operator to offer subscribers a flexible viewing experience -- a feature he said is a “must have” in the eyes of consumers.

Subscribers are demanding the ability to “watch their favourite programmes both inside and outside the home, on a variety of devices,” Capitaine explained. He added that Ericsson’s TV platform “is helping us offer exactly this level of flexibility, giving our viewers the opportunity to enjoy a service that they can mould around their connected lifestyles.”

In a statement, Ericsson explained that its Multiscreen Headend delivers functions including time and place shifting capabilities, and enables Proximus to offer TV services across multiple devices.

Specifically, subscribers using Proximus’ TV Anywhere service can: switch between screens while viewing programmes; record content on a smartphone for subsequent viewing on a tablet; transfer content between screens by swiping; use their mobile device as a virtual remote control; and view live and recorded content across all screens.

Itai Tomer, head of Cloud DVR at Ericsson, said the ability to offer flexibility in the viewing experience will become increasingly important over the next four years. The vendor predicts that the “time spent watching on-demand and time-shifted content will have reached 50:50 parity with linear and live TV” by 2020.

That shift in viewing habits is pushing service providers to “overhaul their offerings” to keep pace with consumer demand, Tomer added.

The deal with Proximus is Ericsson’s second agreement with a telecoms service provider this week covering TV developments. The vendor previously announced that EE parent BT is the first to deploy its Piero Augmented Reality system, which enables broadcasters to overlay 3D graphics and analysis on real-time studio productions and sporting events.

For more:
- see Ericsson’s Proximus announcement
- view the vendor’s BT release

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