Magyar Telekom’s strategy envisages the disappearance of set-top boxes in the future, with services moving to the cloud.
According to Matthias Linder, the company’s CTO, set-top boxes in the country are currently heavily subsidised.
Given that they account for 70% of costs, with middleware and client licences the remainder, their trends are shaping the future business case.
Commenting on middleware, Linder said that there is a need for open standard APIs and the ease of set-top box/device integration is outweighing all other aspects.
He also referred to interactive TV apps such as Sport Interactiv, which the telco has launched in three markets and has been very well received, being watched by over 6% of customers during last year’s Olympics.
Magyar Telekom has seen a steep gain in its TV market share, up from 12% in 2008 to a current 28%.
It has a total of 800,000 subscribers for its IPTV, cable and satellite services, with 40% being interactive.
Commenting on the way TV will look in the future, Linder said it would be integrated with telco devices (IMS-based); open for third party solutions and applications; and a lot more ‘social’.
