CABLE CONGRESS 2011 – LUCERNE. The launch of UPC’s new home gateway known as Horizon has been delayed for several months, Broadband TV News has learnt. Earlier this week Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries said a launch in Switzerland during the first half of 2012 was realistic. With the Netherlands slated to be the first UPC territory for deployment, this would suggest a deployment there in the latter half of 2011, rather than the mid-year as had previously been assumed. Switzerland itself was initially anticipated to receive its first supplies during 2011.
“We’re still keeping to the timetable, just that the timetable is now later than originally planned,” a senior technology source told Broadband TV News. The precise reason for the hold up remains unclear.
A spokesman for UPC pointed out that the company had never made its schedule public. He added there was “No delay to the programme.”
Meanwhile, further details of the Horizon product have emerged. Technology partners Intel, NDS and Samsung had already been widely publicized, but in a Cable Congress session on Tuesday afternoon Balan Nair, CTO, Liberty Global revealed that Horizon would launch with 100 widgets, most of which would be drawn from the Yahoo framework, which would be included as part of the Horizon set-up. Providers of widgets would be able to use metadata from the TV guide so that they could add value without risking the stability of the platform.
It has also been confirmed that Horizon will run both Flash and HTML-5 as part of its ability to run a variety of file formats as the device pulls in content from the internet and around the home. Nair said Liberty was working with NDS to ensure the cableco had permission to carry as many formats as possible.
