SingTel Selects Ruckus Wireless as the Standard for In-Home Wi-Fi Distribution of its National 'mio TV' Service

SingTel Selects Ruckus Wireless as the Standard for In-Home Wi-Fi Distribution of its National 'mio TV' Service

Puts Control Back in the Hands of Consumers Who Can Now Watch Their Favorite TV Shows and Movies Where and When They Want

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Ruckus Wireless today announced that it has been selected by Singapore Telecommunications Limited, (SingTel), Asia's leading telecommunications group, to supply its award- winning Ruckus MediaFlex(TM) Smart Wi-Fi system to enable reliable in-home wireless distribution of SingTel's popular new "mio TV" (IPTV) service.

SingTel has standardized on the Ruckus MediaFlex 802.11g Smart Wi-Fi system as their in-home wireless distribution option. It is providing the Ruckus MediaFlex system to installers and offering it to Singapore subscribers as an option to connect televisions throughout the home to its IPTV service without disruptive wiring.

SingTel estimates that approximately 70 percent of all subscribers who initially request having their homes wired with Ethernet change their mind to a non-wired option when the installer arrives. Singapore has over 1.4 million households with 2.02 televisions per household. SingTel is the market share leader for broadband services with over 380,000 subscribers.

Since launching mio TV in July, SingTel has taken aggressive steps to leverage IPTV to return control of television viewing back to consumers by providing some of the industry's lowest pricing, a la carte packaging and unique on-demand programming. For instance, SingTel recently announced a deal with Sony Pictures Television International that brings viewers Sony's upcoming slate of feature films at the same time as the DVD release and before they are seen anywhere else on TV.

"Historically there have only been two options available to Singapore consumers -- free-to-air programming and cable TV -- neither of which give consumers the kind of control they want," said Patrick Tan, Deputy Director of IPTV Services for SingTel. "mio TV changes the very nature of conventional television consumption by moving from a linear model of scheduled programming to an on-demand model of time-shifted television. This gives consumers, for the first time, complete control."

According to SingTel, the selection of Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi technology for in-home multimedia distribution stems from this same vision of giving subscribers more control and choice.

Why the Ruckus in Singapore?

With the Ruckus MediaFlex system, Singapore consumers can now extend the location freedom that they enjoy with Wi-Fi technology to their television viewing experience. The Ruckus MediaFlex allows SingTel and its customers to place televisions virtually anywhere within a home without running cumbersome and costly cabling while ensuring flicker-free TV. According to SingTel, the Ruckus MediaFlex system was selected because it:

   1) cuts wire-line installation times in half while providing the same      quality of service   2) is aesthetically pleasing for subscribers   3) provides greater flexibility for television placement   4) allows SingTel to ultimately move to a self install, Do-It-Yourself      model where subscribers can visit retail outlets to purchase the      service and install it when it is convenient for them.   

Smart Wi-Fi is a patented and ground-breaking technical advance in Wi-Fi that enables delay-sensitive traffic, such as streaming digital IP-based video or voice, to be reliably transmitted over standard 802.11 frequencies.

"SingTel is yet another proof point that Smart Wi-Fi is the right technology at the right time," said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless. "Given its population density, Singapore is one of the world's most challenging Wi-Fi environments where conventional technology wasn't enough. We continue to see demand for a new class of Wi-Fi that delivers dependable operation, predictable performance and extended range. Whether at home, at work or at a hotspot, people want Wi-Fi to do more for them than it has in the past. We're making that a reality."

SingTel joins a world-class group of more than 100 broadband providers -- such as Belgacom, PCCW (Hong Kong), FASTWEB (Italy), Telefonica del Sur (Chile), Telefonica O2 (Czech Republic) and Pioneer Telephone (U.S.) -- who have all standardized on the Ruckus MediaFlex Wi-Fi system to support in-home multimedia distribution of triple-play services.

I Want My mio TV

SingTel is delivering mio TV over an ADSL2+ infrastructure. Standard definition channels are compressed using MPEG-4 (H.264) at a data rate of 3.5 Mbps per stream and multicast over IP from SingTel's head end.

Singapore subscribers can create a custom television service by choosing their own mix of content from over 27 broadcast channels (standard definition), six (6) HDTV channels and over 500 video on demand titles. For approximately US$10 ($15 Singapore) per month, consumers can select three to five channels among any of the channels or VoD titles available to them.

The monthly subscription includes an HD-ready (1080i) set top box. For an additional US$6.50 ($10 Singapore) consumers receive a set top box with integrated DVR that allows the storage of 80 hours of standard definition or 20 hours of high definition content. SingTel's mio TV is one of the first to introduce on-demand channels to the Singapore market and provides a huge variety of Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkien programming

The base wireless package includes a Ruckus MediaFlex access point and adapter for a single TV and is available to Singapore customers at a subsidized cost -- making the solution extremely compelling to users. SingTel also offers wired options to consumers.

The interactive and flexible mio TV platform will open up even more opportunities for innovative services in the future. Subscribers will have much to look forward to, including the possibility of communicating using video conferencing and instant messaging, displaying photos and playing music from their PCs, all on the TV set.

What is IPTV?

IPTV is a new way of streaming real-time television programs, movies and other video content over a broadband IP network. Unlike conventional TV, IPTV requires connecting multimedia receivers (known as IP set-top boxes) to a computer network to receive video transmissions from the broadband modem or home gateway.

The proliferation of wireless and IP services has lowered traditional barriers to entry to wireline communications service provider markets. This results in ever-increasing line losses to new competitive service providers and margin erosion. To remain competitive, communications service providers face two strategic imperatives: 1) increase their services portfolio to include new broadband services like IPTV, and 2) decrease their operational expenditures to remain cost competitive.

Since most home computer networks do not extend to areas where the televisions are located, consumers have to put up with expensive and/or unsightly Ethernet cable installations. While technologies exist today to make Ethernet work over existing coaxial or electrical wiring in a home, their applicability is location dependant.

Furthermore, consumers everywhere have selected Wi-Fi as the home networking technology of choice. The Ruckus MediaFlex system is the first and only Wi-Fi system purposely designed to deliver picture-perfect video to all corners of a home by automatically steering Wi-Fi signals around interference and physical barriers. The Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi system also supports simultaneous Internet browsing and voice over IP calls. Once installed, the system can connect multiple TVs and set-top boxes, as well as portable video receivers such as multimedia laptops and handheld multimedia players, without the hassles of new wiring or re-wiring.

    Media Contacts    David Callisch    Ruckus Wireless    david@ruckuswireless.com    +1-408-504-5487 mobile     Tricia Lee    SingTel    tricialee@singtel.com    +65 6838 3065 office  

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: Ruckus Wireless

CONTACT: David Callisch of Ruckus Wireless, +1-408-504-5487,
david@ruckuswireless.com; or Tricia Lee of SingTel, +65-6838-3065,
tricialee@singtel.com

Web site: http://www.ruckuswireless.com/

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Profile: International Entertainment