Abox42 is a German company that was established six years ago, selling STBs to operators. It began selling directly to consumers two years ago; however, the Abox42 brand is now B2B-only.
The company develops and sells white-box STBs, although they are not “totally white-box”, we were told. Abox42 keeps a stock of units in warehouses; this limits the ability to change the STBs’ design, but does mean that orders can be responded to quickly. Abox also began selling white-box middleware last summer.
Three boxes were on show at TV Connect. The M15 is a hybrid DVB-C/S/S2/T/T2, IPTV and OTT box, while the M20 is pure IPTV and OTT.
At the top of the range is the M40; Abox’s latest-generation hybrid IPTV and OTT unit supporting, UltraHD and HEVC. It runs on a Broadcom chipset.
Next to the set-tops, Abox was showing the newest version of OPX TV, its TV app and backend solution. OPX TV is now available for hybrid DVB, IPTV and OTT products, and the new version has full HbbTV support, an IP- or DVB-based EPG and the ability to run IPTV, OTT and DVB channels in a unified list.
Analyst Comment
Readers might be surprised to hear how many really, really small cable suppliers still linger on in parts of Europe. Abox42 is very flexible in supporting them with very low volumes.
