Barbados-based Columbus Communications is staging a multi-screen rollout that leverages efficiencies in transcoding technology and unified services software. Starting with 30 live linear channels, the operator will deploy in stages to a full 250 channels, turning tablets and other devices into personalized TVs and enhanced communications devices.
A retail and wholesale services provider, Columbus provides digital cable, broadband Internet, digital landline telephony and corporate data services in Trinidad, Jamaica, Grenada and Curacao under the brand name Flow. Its subsidiary Columbus Networks provides IP-based and other services in 22 regional countries.
Unlike many operators in more developed markets, Columbus has yet to plateau. According to CEO Brendan Paddick, Columbus is growing at 25 percent per year and aiming to stay on the cutting edge. ?We position Columbus on a platform of innovation,? Paddick said, in a presentation during an ?Imagine Park? session at last month?s Cable Show in Boston. ?So we are trying to stay ahead of the competition in our marketplace.?
Columbus faces threats common to other operators, such as the proliferation of over-the-top (OTT) video and consumer electronics, and is crafting its own response. ?Our consumers want to access anything on anything, anywhere,? Paddick said. ?And that?s where our ?Flow to Go? product comes in.?
Recently launched in Trinidad, one of Columbus?s four retail markets, Flow to Go is a multi-screen bundle that integrates voicemail, voice, video, and forthcoming applications such as social media on one platform. It also includes a personalization layer, which allows Columbus to have one-to-one relationships with customers in a household.
In an iPad demo on the Imagine Park stage, Paddick logged onto his personal Flow dashboard and touched the entertainment tab, leading to the EPG and a host of options, which included viewing now, sharing, setting a reminder and activating a cloud-based DVR. As in other multi-screen deployments, content availability is subject to various rights restrictions and the customer?s geographical location, but at least in this instance, Paddick faced no roadblocks.
?This is our IPTV platform,? he said. ?This is actually NBC streaming live from Trinidad, here in Boston.?
Providing Columbus with the software that supports personalization across multiple services is UXP Systems. ?We are breaking the household paradigm, without breaking the underlying system,? said UXP CEO Gemini Waugmare, who co-presented with Paddick in Boston. ?The second thing is that we are breaking the device paradigm.?
To drive the delivery of 250 linear programming channels to hybrid (DVB/IP) set-top boxes, PCs, tablets and smartphones, Columbus turned to Elemental Technologies, a company that exploits graphics processing unit (GPU)-based electronics from nVidia to deliver efficient transcoding. ?It?s very powerful for parallel operations,? said Elemental CEO and Co-Founder Sam Blackman of the GPU?s capability in an interview at the Cable Show.
Columbus is the latest of many wins for Elemental. Blackman pointed to deals this year with international broadcasters in the UK, much of Europe, Latin America, Japan and Canada for multi-screen delivery of Olympics video, as well as business announced last year with Comcast and Avail-TVN.
The Columbus deal provides of snapshot of Elemental?s value proposition. According to a statement from Columbus CTO Darren Richer, Elemental won out because of ?overall video quality, high-quality software, system scalability, significant reduction in power consumption, a smaller hardware footprint, (and) lower maintenance costs.?
Jonathan Tombes is Contributing Editor for Videonet. He began writing for Videonet in 2011, having covered evolving voice, video and data technologies for nearly twelve years. From 2005 to 2010, he served as editor of Communications Technology, which he joined in 1999. Since leaving CT, he has worked as a consulting editor for more than a dozen technology suppliers. Earlier in his career, he was a researcher at a public policy institute in Washington, DC. In paper submitted to a business school professor many years ago, he once described Steve Jobs a cult leader; he now admits that his Apple devices are sometimes his favorite video displays.
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