Irdeto to Protect Ala TV Media Content and Deliver Pay TV Services to Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan’s first pay TV service uses Irdeto Conditional Access System to secure multiple types of content against unauthorised access

AMSTERDAM — Irdeto (JSE: NPN), the leading expert in multimedia content and business model protection solutions and services, today announced Ala TV, Kyrgyzstan’s first digital cable pay TV operator, has selected the company’s Conditional Access System (CAS) to provide vital content protection and support for its inaugural digital TV service offering.

Pay TV revenues in developing markets like the Eastern Europe/CIS region are particularly vulnerable to content piracy. Without the implementation of effective Conditional Access systems in this region, piracy-related losses could spike nearly 37 percent yearly, according to Datamonitor. As a regional pioneer in the pay TV market, Ala TV selected Irdeto’s CAS to provide a high level of protection against the theft of content that will ultimately yield a wide range of revenue- and royalty-generating services to help enhance and grow its business model.

“Since we are the first mover in the pay TV market in Kyrgyzstan, we needed a strong, experienced partner with proven technology to lay a solid foundation of subscribers and allow us the ability to provide advanced services offerings in the future,” said Vassiliy Goncharov, general director of Ala TV. “After an extensive review, we chose Irdeto because of their superior product, high level of customer support and strong recommendations from other operators in the region.”

The Conditional Access market is growing at a marked pace thanks in part to demand for the technology in markets outside North America. In Russia and Ukraine alone, Datamonitor projects subscribers to digital pay-TV services to increase 28 percent annually to 8.7 million households by 2012.

“We are seeing an influx of innovative CA broadcast deployments taking place in the CIS region and this is becoming a key growth market for our organisation,” said Graham Kill, CEO of Irdeto. “We have already carried out a number of successful deployments in neighbouring Kazakhstan and are eager to work with a progressive firm like Ala TV. This partnership signifies our increasing involvement in helping organisations in young markets protect content at every point in their development.”

In addition to Irdeto’s CAS for multiple content types, the deployment will also include Irdeto’s latest head-end device. The CAS solution will fully integrate with Changhong set-top boxes and Scopus, the acting head-end vendor. Ala TV operates with Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS), a wireless telecommunications technology used for general-purpose broadband networking and as an alternative method of cable television programming reception.