News
Video Messaging: The Benefits of Convergence
By Masha Zager
Jun 5, 2006, 14:32

This article is reprinted courtesy of Broadband Properties Magazine.

The "triple play" of telephone, Internet, and video has become the standard offering of fiber-to-the-home providers, whose bandwidth easily accommodates all three streams and more. But is triple play only a marriage of convenience, or are there benefits to be gained from bundling these services?

Vendors like Integra5 Communications are betting that convergent products that mix telephone, computer, and video will appeal to consumers. Their products are catching the attention of triple-play providers, including both cable companies and telcos. Foothills Telephone Cooperative in rural Kentucky became the first telco to offer Integra5's video caller ID and voicemail service to its FTTH customers.

Subscribers to the new service will see the caller's name displayed on the television screen -- along with the caller's picture, if they've added it to their address book -- when they receive a phone call while watching television. If the television is off, the call will be logged and saved, even if the caller doesn't leave a message. Foothills is setting up a "virtual channel" where subscribers can review calls they may have missed.

Video messaging is a low-cost service but it increases the digital video take rate.

Shawn Thompson, Foothills' headend engineer, says that even customers who don't subscribe to digital video can use the new service -- all that's required is a set-top box. In fact, the company is hoping that some of its analog video customers will upgrade to digital service once they have the set-top box in the house. (Cable providers who have offered Integra5's video messaging service have found that it does increase the digital video take rate.) Though pricing hasn't been finalized, Foothills expects to charge only a dollar or two per month for the new service, and may even offer a free month to introduce it.

Integra5 plans to add bells and whistles to its video messaging product, says Meredith Flynn-Ripley, the company's executive VP for marketing and sales. Within the next year, the call-logging service will be upgraded to a full-featured voicemail. By clicking the remote control, subscribers will be able to listen to voicemail and even return telephone calls. They will also be able to use ringtones to identify individual callers. In addition, SMS, the text messaging technology used on cell phones, will be available through video.

The messaging service offers phone companies a new way to communicate with their customers, according to Flynn-Ripley. Telcos can deliver messages to selected set-top boxes -- for example, they can send information about service problems only to affected subscribers, or notify customers about special offers. And while video messaging seems like a natural fit for FTTH providers, the service is actually technology neutral and can be delivered over any kind of television and telephone lines.



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