Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange has said that within the next five years, Orange is going to virtualise its set-top box, removing the TV decoder from its dual-box Livebox device completely. Richard, who was being interviewed by O1netTV, made this statement at Orange’s Show Hello event in Paris.
Orange currently uses the Livebox for connectivity and distribution, and storage of TV and media content, and in the future, the box will only provide connectivity with other functionality placed in the network.
Orange will have to double its data centre capability with this change as the removed functionality will have to be transferred to remote servers in the network. This will enable users to access and manage media from anywhere. Following a pilot trial in Romania, and a planned launch in Poland later in 2017, DVR functionality will be moved into the cloud for customers in France from next year.
The Livebox was introduced in May last year, and the set-top box part of the dual-box device is Ultra HD-capable and includes a 1TB hard drive.
Richard also said that investment in content was becoming more important, and customers wanted freedom to purchase pay-TV services from multiple sources, and not be tied to exclusive distribution of pay-TV services on specific hardware platforms.
A new voice-enabled assistant, Djingo, was announced at the show, and can be used to stream programmes or launch or control other devices in the home.
Stephane Richard at Show Hello
