NextGenTel follows NRK
By André Lorentsen,
Wed 4. okt 2006 kl. 04:00
NextGenTel customers can now again see NRKs web-tv in full speed.
Norways second largest broadband supplier,
NextGenTel, reduced in June the transfer speed from
NRK.no to it's broadband customers. The motivation was to cut costs.
- We cannot increase the capasity on our lines at the same pace as the free offers from NRK, said marketing director, Morten Ågnes in NextGenTel in a comment to
Forbruker.no.
Fotball viewers pays
But the football leage have always had full speed.
The football league is a payment subscription service, and then we get paid to transfer the programs to our customers, was the comment from the marketing director.
Network manager Bjarn Andre Myklebust in NRK did not like the new strategy from NextGenTel.
TV2 and NextGenTel have always had a very good relationship.
- We don't like that our products get a lower quality when being delivered to the end user, and I guess the customers don't like it very much either. Our principle is that we deliver a high quality product to every broadband companies. From there on it's their responsibility, Myklebust says to NRK.
Crossed customers
To show where the responsibility was, the web director of NRK.no published a message to the customers of NextGenTel. At the same time the maximum speed on NRK's web-tv was reduced to 650 kbps for NextGenTel's customers.
The strategy paid off. Now NextGenTel has changed it's mind and have set the capacity back to the same level as before the reduction in June.
- I got a phone from NextGenTel tuesday morning. They told that they had received some negative feedback from their customers, and that they had realized that this wouldn't work, Myklebust proceeds.
Roles
He claims it was important for NRK to use this case to underline the roles between content producer and distributor.
- It is important for us to show that we deliver content, and that it is the distributors that have to make sure the customers get what they already have paid for.
The case have also lead to renewed dialog between NRK and NextGenTel.
- We are in dialog about long term planning when it comes to transfer speeds. We also evaluate the possibility of a commercial cooperation about paid content from NRK, Myklebust says.
