Next Generation Communications

Historians fondly remember the golden age of television, that period of time, which spanned the late 1940's through to the early 1960's. By the late 1950's television had become the dominant form of in-house entertainment, and manufacturers and consumer goods companies began to advertise their wares to this somewhat captive audience.   According to the Web site for The Museum of Broadcast Communications, the term soap opera even has its roots in commercially-sponsored daytime programming, where "the term "soap" in soap opera alluded to their sponsorship by manufacturers of household cleaning products."   Advertisers had decades of uninterrupted access to this audience.   Now fast forward to today. TV viewership is rapidly declining, the advent of digital video recorders makes it possible for viewers to skip through commercials, making advertising a difficult business indeed.   Today's opportunities for advertisers lie beyond the so-called "boob tube" -- with users consuming video entertainment in ever more innovative ways, advertisers need to keep pace. One way to do so is to provide advertising messaging that is compatible with the increase in Mobile TV or Mobile Entertainment..   A recent article in Alcatel-Lucent's Enriching Communications magazine, entitled Early Movers in Mobile TV are Poised to Capture a Burgeoning Market cites research by ABI Research that posits   the number of mobile TV subscribers worldwide will grow from 11 million in 2006 to 462 million in 2012, representing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 85%. But cashing in on this growth will require service providers to make significant changes to existing network infrastructures and business models.   This is certainly fertile opportunity for advertisers and carriers alike to serve ads to their customers.   The article provides case studies, in particular a look at how Australian carrier Telstra is bringing its solution to market.   The solution is based on Alcatel-Lucent's 5910 MiTV solution, which enables a highly personalized, interactive service with advanced features, including fast channel change, user interactivity and a compact client for embedded applications on handsets.   Another case study focuses in on ICO Global communications, a satellite communications company based in Reston, Virginia.   The operator has developed an advanced hybrid system combining satellite and terrestrial communication capabilities to offer wireless voice, data, video, TV and Internet services on both vehicular and portable devices.   In April 2008, ICO successfully launched the ICO-G1, a next-generation geosynchronous satellite operating in the 2GHz S-band with a service footprint that covers most of North America, using the Digital Video Broadcast - Satellite services to Handhelds (DVB-SH) standard.   To learn more, click to read the article.