DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/be0718/latin_america_di) has announced the addition of the "Latin America - Digital Media and Pay TV Market" report to their offering.
This report covers developments in the Digital Media and Pay TV Markets across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Across Latin America the slow but steady investment in telecom infrastructure in recent years has enabled operators to capitalise on their improved capabilities, and so offer a range of bundled services. Depending on local market developments, these traditionally incorporate combinations of fixed-line and mobile telephony, broadband, IPTV, VoIP and VoD. Double-play offers (fixed-voice and broadband) make up the bulk of the bundled services subscriber base, followed by triple play offers.
Bundled offers are popular business models among telcos since they serve as anchors in their bid to retain customers, lowering churn rates, while for customers the ease of billing and the cost effectiveness of bundles serve their interests. Regulators are equally attracted to the proposition since services promote competition and encourage telcos to invest in infrastructure. Considering that in most countries incumbents still dominate the fixed-line and DSL sectors, this convergence of services has been actively encouraged.
With poor take-up of LLU, despite regulatory efforts in recent years, competition in the broadband sector, and thus for associated services such as VoIP and VoD, has depended on cross-platform offers from cable broadband operators.
Cablecos - being able to offer broadband and telephony on upgraded networks - have thus become serious competitors to the region's incumbents for bundled services. In many instances they are the only players investing in network infrastructure, while upgraded cable technologies can potentially provide a better service than many DSL alternatives.
Although cross-platform competition has thereby emerged in many markets, it has similarly led to ongoing legal and regulatory disputes among players, exacerbated by the vested interests among some political elites to preserve the revenue and market shares of incumbents. Nevertheless, the market share of cablecos for broadband access has risen steadily during the last few years.
CATV operators and broadcasters in Latin America have a natural advantage in that TVs in the region are a ubiquitous part of life, and almost every home has its own set. CATV networks are steadily being updated to digital services: this has addressed TV piracy to some degree, provided a larger number of channels to be distributed, and released sub-1GHz spectrum for other telecom services.
Despite such progress, the DTTV market continues to be marred by disagreements over a preferred regional standard, with the result that countries have adopted incompatible systems based on geo-political considerations: Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador have adopted the ATSC standard while Uruguay and Colombia chose the DVB standard and Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela adopted the SBTVD standard.
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