Telstra already has its TBox set-top box and BigPond Movies, and it offers Foxtel pay TV, which it half owns.
Now it is introducing Telstra TV , which “will offer customers the three leading subscription video on demand services – Presto, Stan and Netflix (via the new service), alongside a selection of TV catch up services and the latest new release movies from BigPond Movies, Australia’s leading online movie rental store.”
Telstra TV will be based on the Roku 2 streaming device, a set-top box which will make its existing TBox obsolete and redundant. The move will catapult Telstra, Australia’s biggest telco, into a leading position in the provision of subscription video on demand (SVOD) in Australia, a technology that has gone from technology curiosity to mainstream delivery medium in just a few years.
“We are already the network of choice for video for many customers around Australia,” says Eric Kearley, Telstra’s head of IPTV and Pay TV. “The demand for video content will only increase the need for superior networks to deliver this content.
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“Rather than restrict our customers’ choices, we want to host all the popular streaming video services on our platforms and make it easy for them to get all the content they want in the one place. We want our customers to have access to all the popular streaming video services on our platforms and make it easy for them to get all the content they want in the one place.”
The Roku 2 set-top box can integrate a number of different streaming services as ‘channels’. Its ‘streaming player’ devices are popular in North America as content aggregators. Telstra has not spelt it out, but the deal with Roku means they are likely to replace Telstra existing TBox devices.
Roku currently licenses a reference design and operating system to TV manufacturers to create co-branded Roku TV models. It licenses its streaming platform to Pay TV providers around the world who want to use the Internet to deliver entertainment services through streaming players.
Roku was founded by Anthony Wood, inventor of the digital video recorder. In 2008 its first device enabled Netflix’s move from DVD rentals to streaming.
Telstra TV will be available for purchase in September 2015, “with pricing and more specifics around content and the streaming player available closer to launch.”