There was a recent article in PC Magazine that had hoteliers talking about investments they are making to  bring more high tech gadgetry to hotel guestrooms, despite the tough economy. The hoteliers, such as said Page Petry, Marriott's senior vice president of information resources, talked about wanting to give guests access to all the newest in technology, such as IPTV, iPod connectivity, the iPad, and smartphone applications to make it easy to connect in the hotel room and to go way beyond the basic wireless service.

Acentic understands this demand more than most since we are constantly talking to hoteliers about how they can get closer to their guests. With our recent launch of Panorama IP, our customers can now be running converged services like TV, HSIA and VoIP over the same network. The goal is to provide hotel chains with a holistic platform line-up suited to their chosen physical network architecture. The key element here is the potential for cross marketing so it’s important to have a consistent user experience across all hotel locations no matter which network is installed in each hotel.

Most converged service operators only end up converging on your bill with the different services run as separate entities and often managed by different departments. Convergence is much more than a unique bill. Acentic is introducing content promotion on its broadband platform with the objective to drive take up and revenue of iTV services, as well as differentiate its broadband offering. The same will apply with mobile technology moving forward. Each appliance or device should not be seen as a separate content platform but rather as part of a global content strategy driving usage of all services on all devices. The ability to extend, for example, a TV content program with additional applications on the mobile device can significantly increase the life span of a TV content program beyond the simple living room experience.

We recognize that it is also extremely important to remember that the TV is not the PC and we have to keep it simple. Past experience has proven that on-screen interactivity is successful only when the interactive content is relevant to the broadcast program being watched. Stand-alone interactivity with no correlation to the TV viewing experience just doesn’t lead to high take up rates. The implications of this are that interactivity must start from the outset of the creation of a TV program and be seen as a seamless extension. Therefore the majority of TV based Internet content will not be the Internet content we know today but new developments from the TV content world.

The TV remains a passive viewing device and as such, the interactive services and applications must remain as simple and as relevant as possible and be seen as a enhancement to the original passive experience. Program creators will have to adopt new skill sets to fully understand, develop and leverage web-based content. The use of social media may very much act as a tool to generate a following around a program, event and slowly migrate the TV experience away from the individual passive experience to a more sociable environment.

(As posted in videonet, the official IBC blog: http://v-net.tv/Blog.aspx?id=479)

A recent IPTV tender for a major international group stated that channel zapping needed to be under two seconds. So, let’s do a quick calculation- 100 channels to zap through is a full 200 seconds or 3.20 minutes. That is a long time if you consider that Alberto Contador just won the grueling 3642 KM Tour de France with a 39 second advantage over Andy Schleck. According to the analysis report that’s equivalent to 19.5 channel zaps!

The provision of TV over IP has had to face many challenges. I recall one of the first consumer deployments in 1999 actually had the equivalent of an egg timer during channel switching to ensure the viewer knew something was going on. Scary isn’t it? Actually for those of us who stay in hotels, that is still often the case. Hotels that have spent a fortune on upgrading to IP technology are seeing the simplest of activities frustrate the guests, especially with channel surfing and GUI navigation happening about as fast as paint drying. So rather than provide multiple interactive gadgets, which guests often never use, hoteliers should look at the basic must have functionality.

Acentic’s Panorama over IP has addressed these issues with a sub one second channel changing time. In fact, in many cases it’s even faster than the old analogue channel changing. Add to that an intuitive program guide and incredibly fast flash based interface and Alberto Contador could have zapped approximately 39 to 45 channels whilst waiting for Andy to catch up.

We’ve recently partnered with Filmbank in a promotion to brand hotel key cards, TV banners, trailers, turndown cards, and meal-deal promotions with artwork from new movies that are available on digital TV within the hotel.  One example is our work with UK Marriott, where we distributed 10,000 key cards in February branded with artwork from the film, Sherlock Holmes.  We chose to measure this promotion closely to show hoteliers the benefits and increase revenue that PayTV can bring to their hotels.
The results from the promotion were huge! Guests with the Sherlock Holmes (or Angels & Demons) card were much more likely to spend more on PayTV in-room movies than those guests without the branded key card. Many guests liked the key cards so much they saved them as a collector item, which might entice them to book other hotel rooms to extend their collection of key cards branded with different movies on them. The key card promotion assisted in increased sales with 93% higher revenue in the hotels carrying the promotion. Not only did the films that were promoted have increased sales in the hotel room, but there was an increased awareness among guests for the concept of film offerings as a whole. 
Acentic is very proud to have been a part of this promotion with Filmbank and looks forward to participating in further promotions of this kind. Acentic works with Filmbank often, as it is responsible for providing the widest range of movies to hotels in 10-12 weeks after the cinema release.
I see many opportunities for Acentic and Filmbank to work together to reach better revenue generating PayTV plans for hotels, allowing hoteliers to make the most of Hollywood and reach hotel guests’ high expectations.