Unitymedia KabelBW moves to solve outstanding issues ahead of Horizon launch

Unitymedia KabelBW will launch Horizon in the “late summer”, according to Daniel Hesselbarth, director, CPE and product innovation at the Liberty Global-owned operator. However, the operator had to deal with a number of outstanding issues before launching.

Speaking at the Multi-Network Solutions in the Real World event organised by content security specialist Verimatrix alongside the ANGA COM event in Cologne this morning, Hesselbarth said the company needed to implement Germany’s use protection rules, data protection rules and local signaling requirements before launching the device.

“Broadcasters in Germany have high requirements in terms of what can be done with their signal,” he said. Broadcasters had forbidden fast-forwarding of their services through advertising breaks, for example. “That requirement needs to be put into the box as well,” he said. “This not only needs to be put into the set-top boxes but also all other devices [that we address].”

Hesselbarth said broadcasters were protective of their EPG data, which they regarded as their own intellectual property. “With some broadcasters it’s difficult to get EPG data to enhance it with images and things like that,” he said.

Speaking about delivering services to multiple devices generally, Hesselbarth said that discussions with content providers to deliver multiscreen services were “intensive”. He said that German broadcasters increasingly were developing their own apps and online services that made discussions of this sort more complex.