By Stuart Thomson

Axian Group has signed an agreement with TV-as-a-service provider Zattoo to use the latter to bring video entertianment to inhabitants of Madagascar.

Telma, an Axian Group subsidiary, and a major telecoms operator in the Indian Ocean region, is using Zattoo’s TV-as-a-service to offer an advanced set-top box and app based IPTV and OTT services.

Telma has more than five million subscribers in Madagascar and Comoros, with an ambition to offer TV services to both fixed-line and mobile-only subscribers.

Telma’s new TV service comes with features including nPVR, seven-day catch up and instant restart, enabled through Zattoo-developed white label applications for web, mobile devices Chromecast and a Telma-branded Android TV operator tier set-top box.

Telma is approved by Google to use Android TV, which according to Zattoo is still unique for the African TV market.

Zattoo worked with Telma to facilitate daily and monthly-pass options designed for the take-up and streaming of TV channels on mobile devices. Other than Zattoo’s pre-configured local caching servers, Telma did not need to deploy any dedicated hardware or software. The entire service is hosted and managed by Zattoo via data centers in Zürich, Frankfurt and Paris, said Zattoo.

“From the outset, Zattoo proved it had the technical capabilities and expertise to help us achieve our ambitious goal of launching a fully-fledged IPTV service within five months in the middle of a global pandemic. Zattoo delivered on that promise. Its highly experienced team worked closely with the Telma team and proved to be flexible enough to cater to specialised requirements of French-speaking Africa and local markets, in the facilitation of mobile-based subscriptions. The greatest bonus of all is that customer registrations for the TV service are already many times higher than our initial projections,” said CCO of Telma, Bertrand Lacroix.

CEO of Zattoo, Niklas Brambring said: “We are delighted to have successfully secured, and launched, our first implementation in Africa with Telma and the Axian Group. Time and again, we have proven that the Zattoo TV Platform is up to the task of providing a leading Telco with a platform and the support to launch a state-of-the-art, multi-featured TV service to its end customers.”