Region focus

Nagravision helps bring enhanced digital TV to Taiwan

Nagravision has expanded its already strong foothold in Taiwan with China Network Systems (CNS). Having started working with kbro and Taiwan Broadband Communications (TBC) over the course of last year, Nagravision now secures content rights and revenues for over three million subscribers in Taiwan. It’s helping Taiwan upgrade and transform its cable TV industry into a state-of-the-art fully digital and interactive media environment.

Despite its high GDP compared to other Far Eastern countries, and being one of the most cable-enabled markets in Asia with a household penetration of 80%, Taiwan’s media spend is comparatively low. This is down to the lack of quality options for consumers. With most cable operators in Taiwan committed to a re-launch of a technical platform to provide an enhanced TV viewing experience for consumers, they’re waking up to the possibilities of digital TV.

Nagravision’s next-generation smartcard was selected as part of a competitive process by CNS, which serves over one million subscribers. Its conditional access technology will be used to protect content rights and revenues for the launch of CNS’ premium and high definition services in Taiwan.

“The decision to select Nagravision was made after an exhaustive evaluation of a number of conditional access vendors,” said Chuck McElroy, chief executive officer of CNS. “We chose Nagravision based on a total value proposition encompassing security, time to market, extensive feature set and in-country support.”

“Nagravision’s expertise in the pay TV market and its scalable solution has allowed us to prepare for a rapid deployment of high definition services,” said Jih Chao Hwa, CTO at kbro. “Partnering with them will help us differentiate our services today and tomorrow by providing higher picture quality and more viewing choices for our growing 1.1 million subscriber base.”

Nagravision is also working with TBC to secure and integrate all digital services for its MPEG-4 platform. This will more than double the capacity of its cable platforms, already serving over 700,000 cable households, and will give viewers access to both analogue and digital services using only one remote control instead of two. It will also mean they’ll be able to offer new HD channels and a whole range of SD channels which weren’t previously available due to capacity issues.

“We constantly want to offer our customers new and innovative services,” said Thomas Ee, CEO of Taiwan Broadband Communications. “As part of our new digital TV deployment plan we’ll be providing advanced features which include HDTV and Personal Video Recording (PVR). Working with Nagravision will help us take a huge step forward given their experience in deploying advanced global digital TV services.”

“Not only is this a great achievement for Nagravision as a whole, expanding our reach in this region, but it’s an honour to be selected by each cable operator to help deploy and secure their digital TV services,” said Mike Tucker, vice president Asia Pacific at Nagravision. “Taiwan has the potential to provide ever better services thanks to each cable operator implementing high quality technology and security measures to protect the content. It’ll soon become one of the leading countries to offer a next-generation digital TV platform for consumers.”

In addition, Nagravision has also been chosen by CBIT (Cable Broadband Institute in Taiwan), the self-governing body of multiple systems operators of Taiwan, as the de facto conditional access systems vendor in the country.

Nagravision will be holding a press conference in Taipei on 16 April called "Television 2.0 – the power to connect". It will present its plan to build and expand on a next-generation DTV platform in Taiwan.