16 April 2018 – Geneva, Switzerland: ADB, a leading provider of hardware and software solutions for broadband networks, has today announced that Netia, one of the biggest Polish telco operators, has chosen ADB’s latest generation gateway VV 5822 to deliver reliable and high-performance multimedia services to individual and business customers.  The platform equipped with ADB’s Epicentro software is a complete solution that will allow the operator to offer high-speed internet access and a wide range of interactive multimedia services.

Netia has always been known in Poland for its very efficient and complete service.
With ADB’s solution the operator will be able to fully leverage its network capabilities and offer outstanding performance to its customers.

Netia will use ADB’s state-of-the-art VV 5822 gateway series which features high-speed networking through 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports and dual radio 802.11ac/n Wi-Fi. Additionally, the device supports advanced IP-based telephony services.
ADB’s Epicentro software, which works on VV 5822, perfectly complements efficient hardware design enabling the operator to better utilize network bandwidth and deliver best-quality IPTV services.

“The decision made by such a big telecommunication player like Netia, to adopt ADB’s access gateway, confirms that our broadband solutions are reliable, efficient and cost-effective and what’s most important address the needs of today’s end-users who demand advanced networking capabilities. We are excited to cooperate with Netia and enable individual users as well as small and medium businesses to enjoy best-in-class broadband services across Poland“ – said Jacek Galik, SVP Sales at ADB.

“Netia offers one of the fastest internet connections in Poland, with download speed up to 900 Mb/s. To be able to fully use such parameters, our clients need modern and advanced network devices. ADB’s latest generation broadband gateways fully leverage the advantages of our fiber optic FTTB/ETTH networks and guarantee reliable Internet and innovative TV services, both via cable and Wi-Fi” – adds Bartłomiej Zaremba, Director of Network Development and Management Department at Netia.

About Netia

Netia Group is one of the largest telecommunications operators on the Polish market, which employs almost 2,000 people in 70 locations throughout the country. The Capital Group includes, among others: Netia S.A., Internetia Sp. z o.o., Telefonia Dialog Sp. z o.o., Petrotel Sp. z o.o., TK Telekom Sp. z o.o.

Netia (as R.P. Telekom) was founded in the early 90s by a group of Polish entrepreneurs – enthusiasts, supported by American investors from telecommunications sector. Initially, the company provided telephone services, gradually extending the offer with data transmission, broadband Internet and digital Pay-TV.

The company has been listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange since 2000. The majority of shares are held by Polish investors (Mennica Polska, FIP 11 FIZ, Nationale-Nederlanden OFE, Aviva OFE, PZU OFE “Złota Jesień”).

Netia’s fibre optic backbone network is nearly 20 000 km long. It connects metropolitan networks in over 50 cities and provides several independent international connections.

Netia Group owns over 30 000 telecommunications facilities (including buildings, racks and antenna masts) and the number of network nodes (PoP) belonging to the Group exceeds 81 000.

More than 70 percent of A and B class office buildings and over 2,5 million residential units in Poland are estimated to lie within Netia’s network range.

Every third link belonging to the Netia Group’s companies allows data transmission at speeds exceeding 100 Mb/s. In 2020, as part of the “Network of the XXI century” project, entire Netia’s network will be modernized to the fibre optic standard. 

About ADB

ADB is a one-stop shop offering innovative and high-quality full system solutions for content distributors, TV operators and property owners, who want to deliver best-in-class video, broadband and IoT  services to their customers.

ADB combines innovation, software and hardware expertise with user expectations to provide reliable and fully integrated products with a guarantee of on-time deployment and long-term support.

The company is a valued partner of choice to service providers and operators around the globe. ADB’s solutions empower the world’s leading content distributors, Pay-TV and broadband operators.

16th  November 2017 – Geneva, Switzerland: ADB, a leading provider of solutions and services for multimedia convergence, has today announced that the advanced quadruple-play cable operator, Melita, has chosen ADB to implement the commercial launch of its TV service.  Melita will benefit from ADB’s vast experience in the STB market together with innovative applications applied through RDK middleware.

This new customer relationship aims to quickly deploy a variety of new RDK based services which will enhance Melita’s offering to its customer base. The RDK enabled deployment radically speeds up time to market and creates a competitive, flexible and attractive solution.

Melita uses the innovative ADB 1750CF HD HEVC STB with Wifi, and four tuners, providing cutting edge technology.

“Thanks to ADB’s middleware and STB expertise, we are able to provide our customers with innovative services and benefits. The ADB STB with its RDK 2.x middleware solution enables Melita customers to enjoy a combination of interactive services such as 7 days catch-up, video on demand and recordings in cloud. It also allows multiple recordings at any one time, and the ability to “split the screen” and watch 2 programmes simultaneously”, said Simon Poljsak, Product Manager at Melita.

‘The effectual middleware performance, simplicity of use and the low energy consumption of the ADB STB are some of the reasons why Melita decided to work with ADB – We are really proud to count Melita amongst our customers’ said Lennart Broers, SVP Sales Western Europe.

About ADB

ADB is an innovative provider of solutions and hardware for personal and business TV, broadband, and Internet of Things (IOT).

The company’s connected solutions bring together its proven expertise and over 20 years of award-winning industry firsts, enabling customers to build successful businesses and deliver the connected experiences that consumers expect in a digital world. ADB has been empowering some of the world’s leading content distributors, pay TV and broadband operators since it was founded in 1995.

ADB has a passionate and dedicated team of over 550 people, including a 400-strong engineering team. The company is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland and has Sales, Research & Design offices throughout Europe, Asia and North America.

For more information, visit www.adbglobal.com

About Melita

Melita is a diversified and advanced quadruple-play cable operator offering converged telecommunications services. The company offers IP based digital cable TV, broadband Internet, fixed-line telephony, and mobile voice and data services. It also owns and operates an undersea submarine optical fiber cable; a co-location data centre built to Tier 3 specifications as well as a next-generation Wi-Fi service across the Maltese islands.
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• Enable guests to use their smartphones, tablets, laptops and other portable devices to project their OTT (over the top) content to the in-room TV
• Broadcast emergency alert messaging on room TVs to inform guests and staff of safety procedures in case of fire, natural disasters or criminal threats
• Turn static display TV monitors into a digital content campaign manager to support property wide Digital Signage

November 2, 2017 – Geneva, Switzerland. – Today’s in-room entertainment technologies have evolved beyond providing pay-per-view movies in guestrooms. It now encompasses everything from live TV, video on demand, pay per view, and searchable interactive program guides, to pausing, rewinding, fast-forwarding live TV and streaming content from guests’ mobile devices to the TV.  ADB, a company delivering advanced TV solutions for hotels across cable, satellite, and IPTV for more than 20 years, has identified the top three features every hotelier should request from their IRE provider in 2018 to meet their operational needs and guests demands.

“Times are changing, and hoteliers are finding that they can use the IRE system to do much more than provide guests with television programming,” said Chris Dinallo, CTO & General Manager of ADB vuTyme Business Unit. “Research shows a big chunk of hotels’ IT spending next year will be used towards improving digital customer engagement. As guests become more accustomed to accessing information when and where they want it, hotels must invest in technologies that meet those demands. Only then will the guest experience truly be enhanced and appreciated.”

Consider these findings:

• According to the 4th edition Egencia Business Travel and Technology Survey (2017), travelers are looking to technology to make the corporate travel journey more productive and manageable. The report shows 66 percent of business travelers want to manage their business travel on every mobile device, not just on their smartphone. Additionally, 56 percent of global respondents simply want access to business travel tools to do more on mobile in general.
• According to Hospitality Technology’s 2017 Customer Engagement Technology Study, 79% of hotels plan to have a comprehensive mobile experience in place for guests by 2018; 62% plan to add or upgrade their Digital Signage platform in 2018; and 42% of guests said they want integration between their mobile phone and the in-room TV
• In its 2017 Portrait of American Travelers survey, MMGY Global reports that Millennial families – who rely on mobile technology for a do-it-yourself travel experience – are going to spend more and travel more in 2018 than all other generational segments. The study predicts that the 9.5 million households that are American Millennial families will spend 19 percent more on vacations during the next 12 months and intend to travel 35 percent more than the previous year. To support the demands of this demographic, hotels need to invest in the technologies their Millennial guests expect to use during their stays.

“Hoteliers need to understand that interactive TV content – or lack thereof – has a direct impact on guest satisfaction and loyalty,” Dinallo said. “If hotels are not offering the level of in-room entertainment services that guests want – especially Millennials – they will go elsewhere.”

Here are three features that every IRE provider should offer in 2018 and beyond:

1. Screencasting – This feature enables users to “cast” their personalized programming from YouTube, Netflix, Pandora and other premium content providers onto the bigger in-room screen. When it comes to in-room entertainment, travelers would prefer to watch content that they bring with them using the room TV because most hotels have limited channels.

ADB created vuCaster (powered by Google Cast™) to make the streaming process as easy as possible. To stream content from smartphones, tablets, portable computers and other mobile devices to the TV, guests simply use the vuTyme on-screen menu to activate vuCaster. It’s not necessary for guests to enter their account credentials for Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hulu and others. Once activated, guests launch their favorite content app on their mobile device and press the “Cast” icon, content is instantly streamed to the TV. It’s frictionless. And, when content is being viewed on the TV, it frees up guests’ mobile devices for other activities.

2. Emergency Alert Messaging – This feature will inform guests via in-room TV of on-premise threats and the specific emergency action they should take to keep them safe. Instead of sounding just an audible alarm to alert guests of an incident without knowing specifically what the emergency is, where it is, and what they need to do, tying EAM to the in-room TV will provide them with the details they need to act.

ADB is hospitality’s first IRE provider to add an Emergency Alert Messaging system to its platform, providing guests with real-time, life-saving information via the in-room TV about what is happening and what they need to do to remain safe.

3. Digital Signage – If you’ve got TVs, you can have digital signage. Providing interactive wayfinding, lists of events and hotel services can be costly, but guests expect it. If it’s not part of a hotel’s mobile app, that information must be prominently visible somewhere. Working with the hotel’s IRE provider, hoteliers can easily display relevant content via TVs that are not in use.

ABD works with hotels to turn their un-used TVs into a non-interactive content display system without processing fees or involving a third party to manage it for them. The ADB Digital Signage system is no cost; it comes with the vuTyme IRE system and no dedicated equipment is needed. It’s flexible; hoteliers can enable/disable on any given vuTyme TV. There are no dependencies; hoteliers can create their own content. It supports simple content generation; PowerPoint and images suffice.

“Hoteliers with limited budgets, yet who are looking to offer the tools that today’s travelers demand, can turn to ADB and vuTyme,” Dinallo said. “Our solutions are low cost and easy to deploy via your local cable provider. Better yet, they meet the very specific demands of today’s discerning travelers – especially Millennials.”

vuTyme is offered as a managed service to hotels using the global cloud infrastructure or cable company central office. ADB offers 24/7 monitoring to ensure reliability and delivery of service. vuTyme requires no capital expenditure and hotel head-end equipment – just a compact set-back box discretely mounted behind the TV.

About ADB Business TV 

ADB’s Business TV solutions are built on 20 years of continuous development and innovation, delivering advanced TV solutions for businesses across cable, satellite, IPTV and now over-the-top (OTT) services. We provide solutions that meet today’s complex hospitality TV demands, marrying global TV, interactive media, and IP connectivity to enable a better in-room customer experience,

ADB’s hospitality solution is one of the top five most deployed hospitality interactive TV solutions globally and the second most deployed platform in the US.  Our technologies power TV content and services delivery in over 200,000 US guestrooms, across the industry’s leading brands.

ADB is Connecting Lives and Connecting Worlds with innovative software solutions and managed services for business TV, personal TV, broadband and the Internet of Things (IoT). We understand how multimedia convergence is changing consumer consumption and driving demand for powerful, flexible and cost-effective connectivity and services.

Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices throughout Europe, Asia and North America, ADB has deployed more than 60 million devices worldwide. We have a passionate and dedicated team of over 550 people, including a 400-strong engineering team.

For more information, email Info@vuTyme.com

While the broadcast operators, being satellite platform or cable networks, are preparing for the battle with online over-the top streaming services, they face an important dilemma: how to improve their service and add new OTT features to address the needs of their customers potentially considering to churn, without making the platform too complicated for more traditional viewers and risk losing them instead.

Consumers, which were already exposed to online video services, are used to the personalized offer, binge-watching and a rich user interface, which presents the pre-selected content offer via catalogues and recommendations.

On the other hand, the more traditional “couch potato”, which is a good customer, who subscribes to a number of premium packages and pays regularly, prefers channel zapping and browsing the EPG for the events, which are available on familiar channels.

The difficulty is how to address both, so that they feel that the operator cares about their needs and is able to adapt to their changing habits.

Alternative Services

The important ability of ADB’s graphyne2 Hybrid pay TV solution, appreciated by the operators, is to run parallel services from the same platform. This means that the operator can run e.g. a cable service including some over-the top VOD for its traditional market, while providing a pure OTT service with a “young” brand and a different business model from the same graphyne2 service delivery platform.

This ability gives the pay TV operators a freedom to experiment while limiting the risk of jeopardizing the main business. A capability, which otherwise would require a high investment in a parallel platform – in both equipment and personnel.

Additionally, the operator may trial with A/B testing groups and decide which features to retain in the main operation and what to drop due lack of interest or inadequate business justification. Analytic tools track the behaviour of users indicating which functionality is used and appreciated.

Customizable User Experience

With graphyne2, ADB gives the operator tools to configure the service for each individual or for a demographical group. There are several functionalities, which may be desired by one customer profile, while deemed unattractive or even confusing for another.

graphyne2 dashboard allows the operator’s team to create a specific configuration, including selection of features, arrangement of home screen, richness of the user interface and then target it for a specific demography. A/B test groups and analytic tools measure the response and usage patterns of the users.

For example, for more traditional users, home screen sections like “Now On TV”, “This Evening” and “Tomorrow” are clear and provide enough interaction. While for a sophisticated user, the operator may enable automatic recommendation sections like “Because You Like XYZ” or “What You Missed” plus personalized search.

Customization functionality is not only available in graphyne2 Multiscreen and its Android TV version, that are dedicated for two-way operations, but also in graphyne2 Hybrid, which supports one-way and hybrid environments.

The effort ADB puts in the development of graphyne2 products, is aimed at helping the operator address the demand of current and future customers to easily shift between the broadband and broadcast worlds, while addressing a fast changing business and technical environment.

graphyne2 and other solutions for pay TV operators will be presented at IBC 2017 (Hall5-b60) http://www.adbglobal.com/graphyne2.

About ADB

ADB provides advanced innovative solutions for personal TV, business TV, broadband and for Internet of Things (IOT). The dynamically evolving “Connected Age” is changing consumer consumption and driving demand for powerful, flexible and cost effective connectivity and services, which ADB solutions address.

The company has extensive proven expertise and 20 years of award-winning industry firsts, enabling operators to build successful businesses and deliver the connected experiences consumers demand. ADB empowers some of the world’s leading content distributors, pay TV and broadband operators including A1 Telekom Austria, Border States Electric, Canal Digital, Cox, Graybar, NC+, Swisscom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenet, Telenor, Time Warner and Vodafone.

ADB has a dedicated team of over 550 people, including a 400-strong engineering team. The company is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland and has offices throughout Europe, Asia and North America.

For more information, visit www.adbglobal.com

People throughout the world are watching more video than ever before, while the market is saturating with a wide range of content to watch on our mobiles, TVs or tablets. The question is: where does it place the traditional pay-TV operators? And, is there a future in the midst of the fragmentation of the video market?

Pay television operators must evolve to survive. Quite recently, you could still characterize “satellite” pay-TV operators, “cable” television and “IPTV” operators as completely different entities, with different strategies, competing with each other. Now days those classifications are obscure. The DTH operators are launching IP services. The Telcos don’t deliver voice services anymore, and not only migrate their network to data and video, but also use satellite delivery to penetrate new markets. Cable became quad play and seldom uses coax.

Knowing that the modern operators require agility and fast answers to changing environment, ADB extended its graphyne2 pay-TV suite to help shifting the cursor between broadband and broadcast based delivery methodologies. Starting from this year, graphyne2 includes a complete family of solutions that is software suite designed for pay-tv in online, hybrid and broadcast scenarios. It builds on the ADB’s renowned graphyne2 Multiscreen end-to-end solution for two-way Cable, IPTV and OTT and is now applicable for satellite, terrestrial and more traditional cable as graphyne2 Hybrid. In addition, it is available for the Android TV ecosystem as graphyne2 Android.

The online hybrid and broadcast solutions have consistent user experience (UX/UI) and are managed by a single graphyne2 service delivery platform (SDP) and application server. With one setup, the operator can run all these services in parallel or start with one delivery methodology and extend or shift to other, while offering to consumers a smooth, flexible and personalized migration path between broadcast to the online world, as consumers evolve.

graphyne2 UX is designed to be independent from the hardware and middleware, however, it is pre-integrated with various modern ADB set-top boxes and ADB middleware, RDK and Android TV, for quick and easy introduction of the solution into new and existing networks. ADB offers IP/OTT, Cable hybrid, Satellite hybrid and Terrestrial hybrid set-top boxes in HD and Ultra-HD versions.

graphyne2 architecture and 20+ years of ADB’s competence in STB hardware and software, present strong proposition for STB deployment. The same UX can be launched on existing legacy hardware and middleware. Therefore, the operator can upgrade the legacy devices and maintain consistent UX/UI across the whole base while avoiding huge expenses on set-top boxes, marketing, customer education and customer care.

The graphyne2 suite can pre-integrate with pay-TV operators’ existing video head-end, and can also shield the internal APIs from external use. Third party services are integrated on the head-end side, which enables extensions with no need to modify the device software. Additionally, the ADB service delivery platform is available from the cloud as a multi-tenant service.

Pre-integration with third party services like Netflix or YouTube and app store with a vast choice of third party OTT services is what operators are looking for. ADB has accumulated a number of such integrations, which are now part of the overall solution. Content reconciliation is also an important feature, which allows merging different content sources into a consistent offer for the end user.

Apart from the key video elements, the graphyne2 platform also offers a set of crucial “beyond video” customer relation features which improve the viewing experience:

• Personal content recommendations to discover and serve relevant content
• Marketing automation for communicating with consumers based on their behavioral and demographic profiles
• Advertising management for live and on-demand video content
• Audience measurement in real time and with 1 minute accuracy for optimal marketing and content acquisition
• Content management system proven in field operations
• Online consumer relationship management (CRM) with personalized product catalogue.

All functions, including video and metadata delivery, recommendations, marketing management and analytics, are available from the cloud with no need to install any hardware at the operator’s premises.

All this effort, which ADB puts in the development of graphyne2 products, is aimed at helping the operator to answer the demand of current and future customers and to easily shift between the broadband and broadcast worlds while addressing changing business and technical environment.

graphyne2 and other solutions for pay-TV operators will be presented at IBC 2017 (Hall5-b60) https://www.adbglobal.com/graphyne2  

Furthermore, we are as well very pleased to announce that ADB graphyne2 software suite is shortlisted for the ‘Best interactive TV technology or application ‘in the CSI Awards 2017! http://www.csimagazine.com/awards/shortlist17.php