Capital Maharaja breaks into IPTV

Colombo based RaiderTech, the e-commerce and Internet arm of the Capital Maharaja Organisation, has facilitated Sri Lanka's very first step into IPTV, by aligning the Group's TV Channels, MTV Channels (Pvt) Ltd into a strategic partnership with the Tokyo based New Media Group.

RaiderTech has also notched up several lucrative IPTV deals with leading global telcos including France Telecom, to provide Sri Lankan television content across regions such as North America and Europe.

The landmark deal was signed in Colombo, in what the Group feels is the direction and future of media. The partnership will see MTV's locally produced programs in Sinhala, Tamil and English being offered on an Asian bouquet to the Sino-Japanese region including the Koreas.

The advent into IPTV has meant an aggressive upgrade to the TV companies' broadcast facilities and the deployment of a complex mechanism to transmit TV software across the Internet to enable the pure-play feature. This was a particularly daunting task, considering Sri Lanka's broadband infrastructure.

Group Director Mano Wikramanayake said that during the initial deployment, NMG demonstrated their extensive IPTV know-how.

"We were impressed by the quality of the solution and the superior level of service and therefore decided to select the NMG integrated solution for the full-scale commercial launch.

We are confident that this productive relationship with the high level of commitment from NMG will continue into the future with our plans for further growth of our IPTV services in strategic locations through multiple telecom partner relationships."