In the AfricaCast 2013 event, Sylvain B letre looks at another major operator present in Africa - Orange - already doing VoD below the radar and asks: Are African telcos ready to launch VoD in the short term?
Delegates to AfricaCast 2013 last were treated to a demonstration of a mobile content service. Those involved should have heeded the old saying among broadcasters: never work with children, animals or technology. The demonstration ran over a 3G network of a South African operator.
The tests which were made before the session ran perfectly but when the moment arrived, the images streamed were of such poor quality that someone in the audience described it as a radio programme.
The impact of the VoD uptake on local African telecoms operators is clear: in the years to come they will need to re-engineer their data models and invest in infrastructure to get a share of the free and paid VoD segment. The obvious path for them is to partner with exisiting VoD platforms and with local and international content providers.
But don't be fooled! Although YouTube is doing very well across the continent (see video clip interview links at the bottom of this story), mass VoD usage will not happen quickly. African telecoms operators are not in a rush to launch VoD for a simple technical reason: the bandwidth available on their network is still too limited in most places.
But in African urban areas, especially where broadband internet price wars are taking place between telcos, VoD and free or premium music streaming will be a major incentive for consumers to buy expensive DSL or 3/4G-LTE packages. Video streaming or downloads for film and TV programmes requires much more bandwidth and in most places, neither the pricing nor the networks are ready yet.
In the meantime, building on its VoD experience in developed markets, Orange has discreetly led the way in the VoD space among African telcos. This is part of Orange's long term strategy plan and brand visibility. Other African-located telcos have VoD up their sleeves. Take a look at our report on VoD platforms in Africa (http://www.balancingact-africa.com/reports/broadcast/vod-in-africa-a-revi) to see what's happening.
On the technology front Orange supplies VoD solutions over Mobile TV, IPTV and the Internet. It is paying special attention to local content appealing to local audiences, particularly in French and Arabic. Orange's reach with VoD right now spreads across mainly Francophone countries: Mauritius, Senegal, Tunisia. It also launched in Egypt. It offer it on the following platforms:
1) VoD over mobile
Two of Orange operations offer Mobile TV over 3G: Orange Tunisia provides a Free Mobile TV including a paid VoD service with local content; Orange Senegal has a mobile TV bundle including paid VoD service with local content.
2) VoD over IPTV
VoD services as a part of Orange TV offer includes live TV and VoD bundled with a broadband internet subscription
Orange Senegal
- VoD on TV screen only
- subscribers need equipment (Livebox2 and TV decoder) to access the VoD service
- Local content (with over 350 video programmes)
- Agreement with Canal only for live TV
o Orange Mauritius
- IPTV solution with a multi-screen extension
- subscribers need a TV decoder to access the VoD service. They can opt for a Livebox2.
- 700 video programmes, about 20% of the programmes are Mauritian.
3) VoD over the Internet
o Orange Mauritus
- Free VoD service accessible from orange.mu ( video channel offer )
- Web only
- Content provided by Dailymotion
o Orange Senegal
- Using OpenVoD solution provided by Dailymotion
- Web only
- Paid VoD service launched in Q3 2013 targeting the diaspora
- Local content
o Mobinil - LINKdotNET (Mibonil ISP)
- Paid VoD service for LinkDotnet ADSL subscribers
- Web only
- Arabic content: Shofha catalogue (exclusive content rights) and content provided by Rotana*.
According to a new research by broadband network solutions firm Sandvine,
video traffic on mobile networks in Africa is to grow faster than in any other region before it, despite only currently accounting for less than 6% of traffic. The African market is especially unique, as most users are connecting to the internet for the first time through mobile devices we predict Africa will be the fastest video adopter and operators will respond with creative device-and application-based service tiers.
If you are still not convinced about the VoD case for Africa, our VoD report and this newsletter issue provide plenty of clues for VoD uptake across Africa in the years to come.
*Note: Rotana Media Group is a regional media powerhouse: it developed a range of landmark media offerings across a spectrum of disciplines including Broadcast, Film, Music, Digital and Media Services. Designed exclusively to meet the technological needs of the entertainment industry, its contemporary Saudi Arabia headquarters are the central point of this global business, delivered through five regional offices located in Jeddah, Kuwait, Dubai, Beirut and Cairo.
- See more at: http://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/broadcast/issue-no168/top-story/...
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
In the AfricaCast 2013 event, Sylvain B letre looks at another major operator present in Africa - Orange - already doing VoD below the radar and asks: Are African telcos ready to launch VoD in the short term?
