Telekom Malaysia - Huawei

Tao of Business
Unlike other operators who rely heavily on IP, Sky adopted
a hybrid solution, using satellite to deliver TV and fixed broadband to deliver VoD
through its rapidly growing service, Sky Anytime+.
but not a step that we need to go back and dismantle
one year later, there is always an adaptation,” Hammady
explains.
“We want to build a network which delivers what is
needed today but which is capable and open to what we
will need tomorrow, because you don’t want to change
things every day.”
In 2009, Sky started to trial Huawei’s IMS solution,
which not only suits Sky’s current need for fixed residential
telephony services, but also allows Sky to build new
products and services much more easily in the future.
“We are starting to see that people need to access the
same data, in order to watch the same channel on the
move, at home, or in the office,” he says. “The unique
feature of IMS is how it promises the future requirement
for our customers to access any service from anywhere via
any device.”
Since Sky started migrating customers to the IMS
network in September 2010, many records have been
reached. Within four months, nearly half a million
customers had been successfully transferred across to the
network – a new benchmark in terms of volume and
efficiency in the industry. Another wave of migrations
began in July 2011, with estimates of a further 370,000
customers being added to the network, totaling 1.1 million
customers altogether.
After the deployment, Sky will be equipped to
launch further innovative, media-rich services. IMS will
also enable Sky to provide a seamless experience to its
customers across a number of platforms and devices.
“The IMS network is always about two things: making
it cheaper and faster to develop new services. In the
short term, it will increase the cost, but from a long-term
perspective, it will help to reduce cost,” said Hammady.
“We’re confident that our customers will see the benefits of
our investment over the coming years.”
Be the best at what you are good
at, not everything to everyone
“We expect to continue to be the U.K.’s fastest growing home
communications company,” Hammady says with confidence. “It’s
about understanding what you need to deliver, and finding the
right technology to deliver on those requirements.”
“Before we select any technology, we try to understand
what the need is – then we try to find what technology
will suit us best. Remember what people used to say
about WiMAX? Where is WiMAX now? To be a good
telecom provider, you are not obliged to implement every
technology. You have to be selective.”
Unlike other operators who rely heavily on IP, Sky
adopted a hybrid solution, using satellite to deliver TV
and fixed broadband to deliver VoD through its rapidly
growing service, Sky Anytime+.
“This is because it won’t be possible to deliver all the channels
we have on broadband, like HD. If you try to do everything
over IP, then you might not offer the same quality, due to the
need to scale to demand and avoid network contention. For
high-bandwidth services like HD and 3D video, a broadcast
technology like digital satellite remains the most effective, and
efficient, to meet growing demand ,” says Hammady.
“We already have some VoD content delivered over
satellite. We’re constantly recoding some of our most
popular programmes and making them available to
customers via their set-top boxes.”
“But, to expand VoD choice further, we’ve been using
broadband to give customers access to a wider range of
additional programmes more quickly. This hybrid model
helps us achieve our goal of enabling a stable and diverse ondemand
offering with great speed and efficiency.” Despite the
emergence of IPTV competitors, Hammady believes Sky’s
hybrid network positions the company well.
17
DEC 2011