For Connected TV, The New Last Mile Is Dining Room To Living Room
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Last week, I lambasted Virgin Media for taking two years to launch its iPad TV guide for its TiVo (NSDQ: TIVO) set-top box. I have since learned the app has been ready for months; it was submitted to and approved by Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) months ago. But Virgin Media is choosing to sit on it as it considers how to tackle a problem that will soon be shared by fellow connected TV operators…
For Virgin’s iPad app - which lets users switch channels and record shows from their sofa - to work, customers’ set-top box and iPad must be on the same home network. The problem - unlike iPad, Virgin Media’s TiVo is not WiFi-enabled.
That means customers keen to use the new wave of second screen controllers must run cable from their WiFi router to their set-top box. In many cases, like my own, consumers’ routers are not in the same room as their main TV.
And that poses a big challenge to operators - how can Virgin Media launch its fancy new app experience when it knows it will instantly disappoint thousands of consumers who can’t use it? And how does the company manage requests from customers who want its engineers to relocate their WiFi router or run extra cabling?
I discovered this issue first-hand last week. The social TV startup Zeebox’s app also includes an EPG and controller that already works with internet TVs and Virgin’s own TiVo box. But, for weeks, I tried and failed to get the two talking.
It was only in conversation with Zeebox product head Morten Eidal that I realised a cable must be run from router to set-top box. Zeebox has since improved its user documentation to make the fact more clear. And Virgin Media itself will need to approach the same challenge.
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