UPC aims for wide take-up of gateway

Pan-European cable operator UPC Broadband intends to position its gateway product, scheduled to launch in the first half of next year, within the reach of a substantial number of subscribers, although exactly how it will be priced and packaged is still under discussion, according to chief technology officer Eric Lennon.

“We would not be doing it as a niche product because it’s too big an investment,” Lennon told DTVE Daily at the IBC trade show.

Speaking at a press lunch organised by NDS, which is providing the underlying platform for the gateway, Lennon said that one of UPC’s key aims was to enable a wider range of content and applications to be distributed across its network. “We want to make sure those barriers to putting content onto the platform are low,” he said. “We also want to make new partnerships that we don’t have today. Our key objective is to make sure that barriers to innovation are low.”

Lennon said that the gateway, which will be produced by Samsung and is based on Intel’s Atom processor, will be introduced “in a phased fashion”, initially rolling out in the Netherlands, with Switzerland and Germany to follow.