PCCW’s Berriman: Broadband at core of quad-play success
September 24, 2014
By Colin Mann
According to Paul Berriman, Chief Technology Officer at Hong Kong’s PCCW, the telco’s 12-year broadband strategy with fibre broadband at its core has enabled it to achieve Number One status across its broadband, TV, mobile and fixed line service offerings, noting that in particular, TV has halved churn among its broadband customers.
“We’re seeing continued growth of fibre customers,” he told delegates at the Huawei Ultra-Broadband Forum 2014 in London, suggesting that Ultra-HD services would be the driver for Ultra-Broadband.
“Quad-play is the keystone of a wider telco-media transformation,” he said, noting that PCCW’s now TV pay-TV operation was in 58 per cent of Hong Kong households, having overtaken cable TV competition five years beforehand. “We’re eating their lunch,” rather than them eating ours,” he suggested.
He admitted to concerns at the level of piracy from illegal OTT content services, particularly in respect of its English Premier League football rights, and suggested that PCCW was well placed to offer content providers better returns by including their content in its packaged services rather than try to find customers from a distance.