Conax Leading Philippines Pay-TV Market - New Contract with Cablelink

Partner for cost effective and flexible solutions for going digital and growing with future requirements PCTA Convention, Cebu City, Philippines, Mar 21, 2012 - (ACN Newswire) - Conax, a leading global provider of solutions for protecting multi-device digital content, announced it has recently signed a contract with cable operator, Cablelink, the 3rd largest MSO in the Philippines. Conax will deliver a Conax Contego(TM) Broadcast centralized security solution including Conax chipset pairing and fingerprinting. The company now provides content security to the three largest operations in the region. Conax solutions and experience will guide operators in the region in navigating a new digital landscape and generate fresh product offerings and revenue streams for secure distribution multi-device of premium content. Proven, secure and future proof Through the new Conax Contego(TM) Broadcast solution, Conax is providing Cablelink with a highly secure and future proof platform, based on decades of proven security technology. The solution's highly flexible architecture scales horizontally; meaning capacity and performance are easily increased by adding additional hardware for meeting future market demands and growth. Deployment of Conax chipset pairing and fingerprinting functionality will provide Cablelink content distribution platform with an additional level of security all the way through to the consumer device, reducing the risk of control-word sharing, illegal distribution or other forms of content revenue leakage. - "In an market displaying a host of challenges and opportunities, operators like Cablelink need secure content delivery in order to harness new and profitable business models, says Ruel Martin Mase, Head of IT and Broadband Services, Cablelink. Conax is guiding our operations in how good security solutions can promote healthy business." - "Conax is highly pleased to be chosen as security partner for Cablelink. With the launch of Conax Contego Broadcast, Conax is providing Cablelink with world-class content protection that is both easy to deploy and furnishes a flexible path for future upgrades and services, says AreMathisen, VP Asia Sales, Conax. Working closely with Cablelink and our valuable customer base in the Philippines, Mr. Nonie Lanes, Sales Director Philippines, is ready to provide guidance in the emergence of new services and business models and handle a new stream of business enabled by the growing needs of operators going digital." 20th PCTA Convention in Cebu City, March 21st 23rd This year at the annual PCTA Convention, Conax will showcase its advanced Conax Contego(TM) portfolio of content security solutions for enabling pay-tv operations to position for growing service offerings to end consumers, while eliminating risk of lost revenues due to content leakage. Capitalizing on 15 years proven digitization experience, Conax Contego(TM) solutions provide smooth transition from analogue to digital TV operations. - March 22nd, Roger Siow, Conax, Director Asia Sales speaking at the 20th PCTA Convention 2012 in Cebu City, Philippines "Why digital motivation to switch, benefits and CAS introduction" Meet Conax at PCTA Convention in Cebu City for multi-screen product demonstrations and preview of Conax Contego(TM) Broadcast security solution for any size operation. To arrange a meeting please contact Conax: apac@conax.com

Clearwire, layoffs and the future of 4G wireless service

Garet Martin is ahead of the curve. The Portland resident experienced the future of 4G wireless service last week, and it wasn't pretty. Martin gets wireless home broadband and phone service from Bellevue-based Clearwire. She's generally pleased with the $63-a-month package, even though she has to move her modem when a particular tree gets leafy in the summer and interferes with the signal coming across the Willamette River. It was all fine until earlier this month, when she lost access to her voice-mail box. She called me after she had been stuck for nearly two weeks, only getting a recorded message saying her voice mail "is temporarily unavailable." A series of calls to Clearwire's customer-service numbers went nowhere. Visits to a Clearwire outlet in Portland led to more dead-ends, but she did learn others were having the same problem with their voice mail. Martin's situation was a little unusual, but I'll bet customer service will be a growing challenge over the next year or two for wireless companies. A storm is brewing: Phone companies are rushing to build-out fourth-generation wireless networks better able to handle the crush of data from smartphones, tablets and other mobile-computing devices. Consumers have become dependent on wireless devices, and most are upgrading to smartphones that are more complex. To cover the cost of their network upgrades, phone companies are making some changes. They're moving toward more complicated pricing plans that meter data service. At the same time, phone companies are diverting resources away from customer service and toward network upgrades. As we've seen over the past month, this has led to huge layoffs at call centers. T-Mobile USA last week said it's closing seven centers, cutting 1,900 jobs so it can afford a $4 billion upgrade to 4G LTE technology. Verizon earlier said it's closing three centers, including one with 850 employees in Bellevue. These follow a string of layoffs at other companies, including Clearwire. In some ways Clearwire is a bellwether. It was the first company to offer true 4G wireless broadband, but the expensive network project led to sweeping layoffs and restructuring in 2010. Clearwire's shifting strategy led to the problems Martin encountered this month. But she didn't learn that from the company she's been supporting for several years. Customer-service reps were stumped with her problem, and her extended waits on the phone ended in frustration. "Frankly, all the people I reach in the Philippines and India ... they all say how sorry they are, but they can't really do anything -- they can't or won't give me a supervisor or tell me where I can call in the United States," she said. The reps told Martin "they know there's a problem and they told me there are a lot of people who are calling, but they just can't help me." Martin isn't your ordinary frustrated customer. She said she used to head the Better Business Bureau's complaint department in San Francisco. After moving to Portland, she became a community activist. "I love handling disputes," she said. It makes you wonder what a less-motivated customer would have done. I'd have thrown my Clearwire modem out the window after those calls. Instead, Martin drove to a Clearwire retailer in Portland. A person there gave her a number for a corporate office, which was always busy when she called, and for a regional office in Portland that turned out to have been vacated. The sales outlet had a Clearwire sign but stopped selling Clearwire service and now sells other plans. Still, an employee told her other Clearwire customers had come to complain about the voice-mail problem. Finally Martin began calling reporters. I contacted Clearwire last Tuesday and asked if there were any service problems in Portland or Seattle. The initial response was that there were no network problems, outages or service disruptions. Martin was still stuck, so I tried again with Clearwire, explaining that some customers were apparently unable to access voice mail. A spokesman then replied that Clearwire is shifting the operation of its home-phone service to a third-party vendor. Customers who try their voice-mail password repeatedly during this process could get locked out. Clearwire no longer sells this phone service to new customers. It's now mostly focused on providing wholesale service that larger companies use to supplement their networks. Still, it continues to support 1.3 million retail customers, including perhaps 100,000 using the home-phone service. "The service didn't really make sense as a long-term product for us," spokesman Mike DiGioia said. Most customers didn't notice the back-end provider changed, he said. But some were caught in the migration and had their mailbox PIN codes locked up. I guess that's understandable, but Clearwire dropped the ball by not informing its call centers of the issue. After our exchange, it set up a process for call centers to resolve it, DiGioia said. But after I passed this on to Martin and she tried again with customer service Thursday, it still didn't work. DiGioia noted the fix could take 24 to 36 hours to take effect, but offered to intervene. "We're sorry it happened, but we're working to make it right for them," he said. Martin opted to have me share her name with the company, rather than wait another day. That afternoon she was on the phone with Geoff Levy, Clearwire head of customer care, and a product manager, who immediately fixed the problem. "I'm getting two months of free service, but I still gave him hell," Martin said. "I told him I can't believe you treat your customers this way and you weren't more proactive." Even so, Martin will keep using the wireless service she's grown to depend upon. "I'll probably stick with them for quite a while, unless I have more problems," she said. "There really isn't anything competitive now."

Globe's $700-M upgrade kicks off in Davao City

Globe Telecom's $700 million nationwide network upgrade has formally kicked off in Davao City. Peter Bithos, head of consumer division at Globe Telecom, announced the start of the network upgrade in this city in the presence of Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and other local officials during a press conference at the Marco Polo hotel. Bithos said Globe's 4G mobile network rollout promises to deliver internet downloading speeds of about 6mbps (megabit per second) using broadband and mobile data on smartphone dongles. The executive likened the network upgrade to the railroad developments in the past connecting people via transportation to towns, cities, schools, homes and businesses. "We'll be rolling out 10,000 kilometers of fiber around the country. And that stretch is like from Manila to Australia," Bithos said. "Our goal is for each Filipino to have 3G." Bithos added that Globe's business is growing 20 percent faster in Davao City. Meanhwile, Duterte said that with the telecommunications development they expect the city to improve on its businesses, education and even employment since it can become an ideal destination of locators from the business process outsourcing sectors abroad. Only recently, no less than the Globe's president and chief executive officer Ernest Cu, assured that the network change-out to 4G will have no adverse impact on subscribers using older technology devices such as 2G mobile devices that uses mostly basic SMS and voice services.