For the first of our pre-event interviews with speakers confirmed to attend the IPTV World Forum, taking place in London this March, we speak to Andrey Kholodnyy, Head of VAS Department within Residential Marketing at Russian telco VimpelCom, which operates the IPTV service 'Beeline TV'.

Mr. Kholodny joined VimpelCom in 2008.  He currently manages the development of broadband products (broadband Internet, home telephony, IPTV and bundles of FTTB-based, as well as Beeline mobile services) and coordinates non-FTTB related services (SIP-based IM, femto-cells).  Mr. Kholodny previously worked at Golden Telecom, part of the VimpelCom Group, being responsible for consumer product development, including wireless and wireline broadband Internet and Voice.  VimpelCom currently has over 30,000 subscribers for Beeline TV


The last time we spoke, in September of last year, you mentioned that Beeline is constructing an IPTV platform in St. Petersburg, and is also considering expanding Beeline TV into other cities as well. How are these plans progressing?

AK: We launched Beeline TV in St. Petersburg on December 15th of last year, and we have already accumulated some good sales there.  We definitely plan to launch IPTV in other cities this year - however, we are still in the tender process for equipment, so I am not sure yet of the timeline for these.

Last September you mentioned that you hoped to add new HD content and IP-enabled services to the platform this year. Have there been any developments on this?

We are now finalising our new high-definition offer, which will be available in the next few months.  We plan to seriously increase the amount of HD content available on our network this year.

In terms of new IP-enabled services and features, we launched our first Web application at the end of last year, developed in partnership with Russian portal Yandex, which delivers updates on currency rates, traffic jams, and weather outlooks in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  We also launched an interactive quiz service. And for the first time we formed a partnership with Travel Channel in which customers could take part in an interactive quiz and answer the questions using their remote control, with first prize being a trip in a hot air balloon.

We have also launched a new content recommendation engine, which analyses a subscriber's viewing history and suggests new titles they might be interested in watching.  It also automatically records shows which the customer might be interested in viewing onto the set-top box hard drive, without prompting.

One of the big challenges you named for developing Beeline TV in Russia was the low penetration of pay-TV services in the country. What is your strategy for educating consumers of the benefits of IPTV?

Our goal is to educate the market on the benefits of IPTV, and for this we have appointed the agency Adventa to promote the service's features such as time-shifting within TV adverts in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  This year we will also continue to advertise the service in the press, and particularly in magazines.  We also plan to continue offering new customers a free trial of the service, enabling them to try it out before committing themselves to a contract.

How are Moscow-based customers responding to the strengths of IPTV over conventional pay-TV platforms such as cable?

One thing that has struck me is that customers whose set-top boxes have time-shifting enabled are using this feature more and more: two years ago, around 20% of eligible customers were using this feature, whereas now it is around 75% of eligible customers.  Customers really seem to be starting to understand the advanced features of our product, and many new customers are signing up for the service as a result of positive recommendations from existing customers.

Are there any specific markets represented at the IPTV World Forum which you think might offer valuable lessons for developing IPTV in Russia?

I think the Greek IPTV market is in many ways similar to the Russian market - in both countries, the major market share is taken by cable operators and free-to-air platforms, and consumes don't understand why they should pay for a TV service.  Also, sports events are commonly free-to-air in both countries, and IPTV services are only just beginning to establish themselves in both markets.