EBIF Unbound: The Full iTV Picture

By Integra5’s Meredith Flynn-Ripley

The promise of interactive television has been years in the making – going back to the early 90s when you could literally fry an egg on top of iTV set-tops (there’s video to prove it). Now, nearly twenty years later, iTV is on the cusp of becoming a wide-scale reality, owing primarily to open standards tru2way and EBIF (or Enhanced Binary Interchange Format, a CableLabs’ standard) removing the complexity and costs of developing, certifying and deploying applications across disparate video set-top environments.

Comcast’s news a few weeks ago that it plans to use tru2way technology to deliver a range of iTV applications and content through a Widget Channel Framework (co-developed by Intel) is just one of many signs that iTV is finally on the way.

While scores of service providers are citing 2009 as the year they’ll begin tru2way trials and deployments, EBIF is gaining renewed attention as the immediate iTV opportunity. Since it doesn’t require new hardware (only user agent software installed on the set-top box) and can work on the more than 32 million digital set-top boxes deployed in U.S. homes today as well as tru2way-capable set-top boxes, EBIF is likely to play a key role in “thin” iTV rollouts over the next 12-18 months and well into the future. Verizon was first to market with a commercial EBIF application in August – letting select FiOS subscribers get real-time Olympic news and medal-count information on their TV screens. And it says nationwide EBIF application rollouts will follow soon.

Industry buzz around iTV has often focused on the cool factor of “bound” applications – which, like Verizon’s Olympic application, are directly linked to TV content, such as voting or polling, hanging interactive micro-sites off of linear advertising or clicking on a widget for product information during a show.

But service providers planning iTV applications based on EBIF need to be aware of the equally significant other half of the iTV equation – “unbound” applications which are independent of TV content. Unbound apps include the already proven revenue and retention-building (and yes, cool) category of blended communications, comprised of services like the popular TV Caller ID, as well as customer care, TV Chat and SMS to TV, among others.

Providers should understand this because the initial and current version of the EBIF specification is silent on support for unbound services (even though the tru2way standard recognizes both bound and unbound applications). The good news is that most of the emerging EBIF user agents include support for unbound applications. Still, it’s important for operators to know that not all EBIF user agents are equal as they go through the process of selecting one.

Perhaps the most public validation of unbound communications applications is the number of major operators that have deployed TV Caller ID this year. Providers view the service as a strategic way to integrate their core services, strengthen their telephony offerings and increase revenues; many are charging an average of $2 extra per month for it. Early adopter IOCs set the stage for this approach, proving the undeniable “stickiness” of the service over the past few years. When Comporium Communications surveyed more than 3,500 of its subscribers receiving TV Caller ID, 25 percent said it was a “main reason” they continue subscribing to its high-value voice, video and data bundle, and more than 40 percent said they would pay $1-$3 extra per month for it. More than 70 percent rated it “as popular” as HD and DVRs.

And TV Caller ID is only the beginning. Just as consumers now expect to view video content on any device, they also increasingly want to communicate across their devices – and the TV is no exception. Freeing iTV applications from TV programming opens the door to limitless new communications experiences for subscribers and loyalty ─ and revenue-boosting options for operators. With unbound iTV applications, providers can send broadcast or targeted customer care notifications that can reduce call center and marketing costs; they can deliver new social entertainment experiences that integrate video, SMS and broadband; and they can leverage this new real estate to offer new avenues for interactive advertising or sponsorship – to name just a few of the possibilities.

A true iTV environment is one that supports both bound and unbound applications, as the tru2way standard rightly acknowledges. Operators planning to roll out iTV applications based on EBIF technology need to ensure that the user agent software they select provides support for unbound applications – in order to reap not just half, but the full revenue and retention benefits of iTV, and more importantly, to be able to continue to meet the rapidly changing communications needs of their customers.

Meredith Flynn-Ripley is president and CEO of Integra5, whose open standards-based i5 Converged Services Platform allows service providers to blend voice, video, broadband and mobile data into new revenue- and loyalty-boosting communications applications that span TVs, PCs and mobile and landline phones.

Related Articles:

NCTA: Top Cable Tru2way Questions Answered

NCTA Calls Out Verizon

Interactive TV Creeps Back Into the Vocabulary

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