Aliant uses IP to roll out subscription-based TV service to customers in New Brunswick

Aliant Telecom Inc. has launched its second attempt at broadband television with the rollout of its subscription-based TV on my PC service earlier this month. Company officials pledge that the new product, which in the initial stages consists of 10 channels for $9.95 a month, will not be shuttered like its VibeVision digital television service offered over copper telephone wires. Two and a half years after launching VibeVision, Aliant announced this past June that it would stop the service and convert its 3,300 customers to its satellite TV affiliate Bell ExpressVu LP (CCR, June 21/02). In conjunction with the TV on my PC service, Aliant also launched Music on my PC, which delivers the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s commercial-free digital music service Galaxie to Aliant’s high-speed Internet customers for $2.95 a month. Aliant nearing complete shut down of VibeVision TV serviceAbout 90 per cent of the 3,300 customers subscribing to Aliant Telecom’s VibeVision digital television service have had the service terminated. The remaining 10 per cent of customers could not be reached over the summer months, according to Heather Hampson, Aliant’s communications and public affairs manager. She says VibeVision will not be shut down until all customers have been switched off. The Atlantic Canada telco announced June 18 that it was winding down its digital TV service and would switch VibeVision customers to satellite TV affiliate Bell ExpressVu at no cost to customers (CCR, June 21/02). Most customers have opted to switch to Bell ExpressVu, but Hampson notes that about 20 per cent of customers that have had their VibeVision accounts closed chose to go with another alternative or to return to free over-the-air channel viewing."There is an important difference between these two services that would hopefully preclude TV on my PC from being phased out over a period of time as we have elected to do with VibeVision," Kevin Hastings, senior planner for Aliant Telecom Broadband Services, tells Canadian Communications Reports. "VibeVision was really restricted to customers who were within two kilometres of our central office because TV-based MPEG 2 video signals require so much bandwidth that on ADSL technology you needed to be that close to the central office. Unlike VibeVision, TV on my PC or Music on my PC are at much reduced bandwidth. They use totally different compression technology and for that reason we can offer these services to all of our high-speed Internet customers." Hastings sees TV on my PC as a supplement to cable and satellite TV. "This is a service that complements your TV viewing," he notes. "You have satellite or cable, and you want this as an option (when you’re on the computer). Quite frankly the market that we’re aiming this at has told us that they want to do multiple things on their PC. They don’t want to use their PC as a TV only." Hastings says TV on my PC, which rolled out quietly on September 3 to Aliant’s high-speed Internet customers in New Brunswick, uses IP multicast technology to digitize, encode, and stream to customers broadcast signals received at the company’s headend. An icon on the Aliant homepage allows subscribers to click on a television icon to begin watching programs. A channel selector enables them to chose the TV station they want to watch by clicking on "channel up" and "channel down" buttons, or picking the desired station from a drop-down menu. Customers can watch shows on their PCs in full colour with stereo sound, while they send email, talk on their telephone, or surf the web. "Even though the same phone line is being used for all these services, we have designed it so that they can all work at the same time," says Hastings, who adds that customers cannot view more than one channel at a time on their PC. Hastings calls the quality of the digital signals streamed to the PC "awesome," with the clearest images being viewed in a window about a quarter of the size of the computer screen. "The signals are digital so they don’t have some of the ghosting, shadows and sparkle and noise that an analog signal has," he notes. "But if you blow it up to full-screen, because most PCs are sitting a foot and a half from your chair – that’s like sitting in front of your television with your nose almost at the screen – you’ll see some blurriness and pixels. But at a distance, it’s very reasonable." All customers are accessing the same streamed signals, with the browser choosing the correct channel based on its IP multicast address. "If lots of customers want to see a particular channel, it is really one stream that they are all tapping into," Hastings notes. "It’s not a matter of hundreds and hundreds of streams going back and forth across the network. Unlike cable, there is no limit to the number of channels that we could stream. This is not cable, where you bring 200 channels to your TV and tune the one that you want. With TV on my PC, you instantly tune into the channel that you’ve picked." Aliant anticipates doubling the number of channels available through TV on my PC within a year, and eventually offering full packages of channel choices to its customers. The 10 channels currently available are TSN, ATV, CBC, CBS, MuchMusic, Newsworld, CTV Newsnet, ABC, NBC, and Radio-Canada. Once the necessary hardware arrives, Aliant also plans to expand TV on my PC to the other Atlantic provinces. At that point, it will begin a more aggressive marketing campaign for the two new services, according to Heather Hampson, Aliant’s communications and public affairs manager. She would not reveal the number of Internet customers who had subscribed to either TV on my PC or Music on my PC in the week and a half since the services have been available in New Brunswick. Because it is being offered only over its own broadband IP networks, Aliant officials state that TV on my PC is a secure platform for TV content and other copyrighted material, and that the respective broadcasters have agreed to the distribution of their channels. The Music on my PC service is similar to the 30-music channel Galaxie service on Bell ExpressVu, except that two children’s music channels have been replaced with an easy listening channel and a Celtic channel. "We have launched Galaxie with two music channels that are right now only available to Atlantic Canadians through Music on my PC," says Hastings. "Some people have high-fidelity tuners built into their PCs, and this is a way to get commercial free music for a really modest price." The subscription-based TV on my PC and Music on my PC services follow the July 18 launch to Aliant Internet customers of free news clips, music videos and programming such as Coach’s Corner – the hockey commentary program featuring Don Cherry aired on the CBC. Hampson says the programming offered for free over its Internet network has had an average of 9,000 unique visitors per week. She expects the number to grow following the summer, which is considered a low usage time of the year.

Aliant uses IP to roll out subscription-based TV service to customers in New Brunswick

Broadcast | September 12, 2002

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