Exset and Newland target cable operators in Pakistan

Exset Continues DMS Integration With Newland Set-tops To Drive Pakistan Cable Digital Transition

THE NETHERLANDS — Exset, pioneers of TV ecosystems for enhanced digital TV services, has today announced that it’s now directly selling the latest version of its Value Added Service DMS ecosystem integrated with Newland set-top boxes to cable operators in Pakistan.

The Pakistan cable industry is facing challenges as it moves from an analogue to digital infrastructure. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority’s (PEMRA) current analogue switch-off date is the end of September 2016. Exset has successfully integrated its DMS middleware with set-top boxes from Newland to create a value-added services ecosystem designed to power this digital transition and to open up new opportunities for Pakistani cable operators.

Mahmood Ulhaq, Exset’s Director of Business Development, Asia said,” With our experience as Exset in other countries, and in the wider television industry, we believe the most powerful factor of the move to digital are the opportunities that it opens up for viewers, advertisers and cable operators alike. If deployed correctly, digital cable will add real value. But there are challenges and that’s where DMS and Exset come in.”

Designed specifically to deliver new revenue streams for operators in an ever more challenging market, DMS offers monetised services over and above video. DMS enables subscription fees – and set-top box costs – to be kept very low, vital in driving the successful migration to digital across the country.

DMS includes multiple value-add services: fully integrated EPG ad-insertion; interactive blue button ad service; push VoD – operators can pre-load their most popular content to the viewer’s set-top box; USB-based PVR capabilities; ‘Red Button’ interactive services – providing additional magazine services (weather, news, and sports, for example) at the touch of a button on the remote, or opening up additional video from a programme stream.

Ulhaq said, “What’s required in Pakistan, as in other countries in transition, is a holistic approach to digital cable, both technologically – which we provide – and from a business perspective. It requires multiple parties – operators, advertisers, technology suppliers, the regulator and monitoring companies – operating together and those are the parties with which Exset is working to drive opportunities forwards.”

Exset is exhibiting on the Rentak Setia booth 4A1-03 at Broadcast Asia 2016.