Deutsche Telekom has tapped Cisco for its recently launched TV Everywhere service — Entertain to go.
The telecom giant utilized Cisco’s Videoscape Distribution Suite (VDS) enhanced content delivery technology that enables distribution of video content across multiple screens, protocols, applications and networks.
Cisco says VDS, part of Cisco’s Videoscape Unity TV services delivery platform, serves as the network distribution engine behind the Videoscape architecture. It offers greater levels of insight into, and management of, content delivery networks.
Deutsche Telekom’s Entertain to go service allows subscribers of its Entertain IPTV service to view 40 TV channels on their PCs and mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets.
Priced at EUR 4.95 per-month the service gives access to the Entertain content on devices that are connected to the users’ home WiFi network, as well as allowing them to view on demand content from the Entertain video library.
Deutsche Telekom benefited from its ability to effectively manage and monitor multiple aspects of their delivery network, including the type of viewing device and delivery logs, with customizable reporting and dashboards to enable the identification and resolution of any issues and ensure a quality of service.
Cisco claims that VDS simplifies CDN management while reducing operating costs through consolidated live origin services and recording, edge caching particularly for OTT content, Radio Access Network (RAN) optimization, real-time CDN analytics and remote provisioning capabilities.
“Working with Cisco to bring the ‘Entertain to go’ service to market has been a very positive experience characterized by flexibility and speed of reacting to our specific requirements,” said Holger Diekmann, Technical Project Lead Entertain to go and Senior Expert Service Management, Telekom Deutschland.