Streaming services will soon be available in Fiji offering viewers an alternative to voice and television services, Unwired Fiji said.
It will mean watching video without downloading movies, clip or show onto your hard drive to watch later as is the practice today, CEO John Pollock said.
Streaming is a term for delivering video like movies, television, music clips and personal clips through YouTube, he said while announcing a new facet to Unwired Fiji's services.
Unwired Fijiæs licence provision enables a streaming service and supports a multimedia platform which will deliver all manner of services when they become commercially viable, Mr Pollock said yesterday.
Unwired Fiji operates two separate wireless networks the first network allows portable broadband through its Navini Networks based Ripwave system, and the second is a High Speed Fixed Wireless system which competes with lease line services, he said.
"These multimedia platforms deliver Broadband for residential to large scale corporate clients on the different wireless platforms VoIP services to both customer bases on the separate networks and streaming services which are starting to get better results from low bandwidth requirements," Mr Pollock said. He explained that streaming meant the video was coming in real time as opposed to downloading the particular movie or show onto your hard drive and then watching it later.
"The stream does not take up your disc space but flows through your machine as it is being watched. "The mechanism to hook your television up to the service is the same as when you record something on your camcorder and plug the camera into your television to watch the event you have recorded," Mr Pollock said.
Streaming will be provided through Joost which Mr Pollock says is the best he has seen to date.
Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. "Joost is from the same team that invented Skype and will enable TV services streamed from all over the world. There are several hundred channels available that will multiply into thousands of individual channels. There are other IPTV services trialing in different countries and will be widely available in the near future," Mr Pollock said.
He said Unwired Fiji will offer what is referred to as a triple play service consisting of data (broadband), voice (VoIP) and video (streaming).
"The streaming portion would cover services like Joost for TV services from around the world and also movies from services like ReelTime in Australia or Eros based in London with an office in Fiji offer Western and Bollywood movies downloaded through Unwired Fiji but viewed on your current Television set," Mr Pollock said.
The only hitch he said was to be on a broadband service to enable these services.
"The advantage to viewers is to be able to choose what you want to watch, when you want to watch it. There is no need to sit by waiting for your preferred show to cycle around, you choose your preference - news, sport, documentary. It will give multiple choices of shows to view. The picture quality is near perfect with only slight buffering. But this will be sorted out by the time the service is launched commercially.
"No video late fees, no missing your favorite TV show, no missing the latest news bulletin. The viewer decides when they want to watch the program," Mr Pollock said.