Q&A with Ben Andradi, CEO, BTopenworld
BTopenworld is BT's new high growth, mass market Internet business focused increasingly on broadband services. BTopenworld is essentially an ISP, but with content that is designed to work with BTopenworld. The technology used by BT is ADSL. ADSL stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. It transforms the twisted copper pairs of wires between the local telephone exchange and your telephone socket into a high-speed digital line. It is called "asymmetric" because it moves data more quickly from the exchange to you than vice versa. This makes it ideal for applications where you would typically receive more data than you transmit such as the reception of digital audio-visual material.
Compared to narrowband, broadband is up to10 times faster, always connected, offers varied portal content, home and business services, use of phone while surfing, unlimited usage at a flat fee, video rich content.
streamingmedia.com: The next wave Internet is getting ready for launch. BTopenworld in the UK are in a unique position to facilitate for broadband, mobile computing and also to offer personalized services. What can we expect from this extraordinary portal?
Ben Andradi: We will offer our customers compelling content and an easy to use intuitive portal delivered with high standards of customer service and technical quality. We will price, market and roll-out services aggressively. We are currently working with companies to offer the best in broadband content, and have more than 60 content deals in place, with a number of content providers covering everything from auctions to zoology. You will be able to buy cars, find jobs, play interactive games, watch movies and keep up with the latest national and international news. Content providers signed up so far include Blockbuster, Carlton On-Line, Rapido TV, Pearson Television, ITN, Cartoon Network and the Internet Movie Database. So for example, with a service such as the Internet Movie Database, the website you would look at with a modem is mainly text based, but on broadband the focus is geared much more to providing high quality streaming video, with crystal clear stereo sound.
Q: New media content providers were obviously longing for the time after narrowband. You are concentrating on broadband specific content. What makes this more exciting than narrowband or TV content?
A: The opportunities for delivering content on broadband are huge. The major advantage over narrowband is speed, with broadband delivering large files, such as audio and video clips is simple and fast. Live streaming of video also becomes viable with broadband. The current capabilities are just the tip of the iceberg, as the speed increases even more over time, the opportunities will become phenomenal.
Q: How do BTopenworld attract big content providers?
A: Content providers see broadband, our mobile Internet and our personal BTopenworld as a very powerful proposition. What they like is the ability to give us one load of content that comes out via a multiplicity of devices. The ability to approach a content provider and propose to distribute their content via the range of devices that we own is a very powerful proposition.
Q: What's the timeframe in rolling out all these services? When do you reach ‘mainland' Europe and do you have any plans to enter the US market?
A: At this time, we have rolled out to 500 exchanges covering approx. 35% of the UK. See http://www.bt.com/broadbandfor the latest details of the roll-out.
We believe that the take-up of broadband, once people see how it completely transforms their on-line experience, will be very rapid. It is, however, a completely new service, so absolute numbers and market share, especially as this is also dependant on the marketing activities of our competitors, are impossible to estimate accurately BTopenworld will enter attractive second wave markets around the world deploying skills, platforms, content relationships and aggressive marketing to gain fast mover advantages.
Q: Ben Andradi, thank you for the interview.