Aferian : Amino Engage Streamlining Device Lifecycle Management and Support

In today's environment, Multi Service Operators (MSOs) are faced with ever-increasing television content costs and cord cutting or cord shaving, resulting in lower TV service margins and reduced revenues. However, walking away from a TV service is not an option for many service operators, as many consumers still look for a one-stop shop to bundle services. In addition, competition in the broadband sector continues to rise, although margins and revenues there remain healthy - and in many cases, continue to grow. This leaves service operators with several challenges relating to their TV service offering. They need to reduce operating cost and complexity, while at the same time introducing new competitive features and expanding access to new avenues of content access. And they need to do this with as little capital outlay as possible.

About Youfone

Youfone is the largest independent operator in the Netherlands, offering both mobile and fixed services to over 400,000 customers. Youfone took the ambitious decision to launch a TV service in 2020, which has been an enormous success. Their strategy from the get-go was simple: launch a TV service with the best of breed devices and service based on Android TV (lower cost, big feature set) and do it with tools and solutions that provide simple, efficient and effective management of the service and their subscribers.

Youfone's primary challenge was time to market, but they also required an end-to-end service, minimising infrastructure costs while delivering the necessary flexibility and scalability. The ongoing goal was to maintain low overhead while continuously improving the service to provide value for money to subscribers.

The Amino Solution

When Youfone approached Amino, the timing could not have been better. First, Amino was just bringing to market the Amigo 7x V2 based on Android TV. Second, Amino had just completed the acquisition of 24i, which could build a custom Operator Tier launcher for Youfone. And finally, Amino had just introduced several key upgrades to its Engage Service Management solution that facilitate the launch and ongoing management of the Android TV deployment.

One of Youfone's key goals was to simplify lifecycle management for deployed managed devices. Amino Engage is a cloud-based service management platform that helps operators deploy and activate set-top boxes, manage firmware/software updates and streamline customer support. Operators can easily validate video service quality with insight related to video stream quality and video performance (e.g., channel change time, etc.).

Amino Engage now supports Android TV devices with a host of new features aimed directly at the OTT nature of Android TV. With Engage, Youfone can easily manage firmware updates. Their customer support teams could use the virtual remote control that has been a long-standing feature of Engage but is also now available on Android TV. More importantly, they could also use the new Android TV centric features such as:

• Android app and Launcher management with distribution metrics
• Device Locking feature for delinquent customers
• Speed test
• Android KPI diagnostics built into the Service and Support module
• Android app usage metrics
• Connected TV information (make, model, brand, preferred resolution etc.)
• Android Debug Bridge command line terminal window

In addition, Amino introduced an HDMI Optimiser, which, when enabled, will learn the preferred input settings of the TV and will in turn set those output settings on the STB to ensure the best viewing experience.

The Value to Youfone

With Amino Engage, Youfone is now delivering exciting TV services to over 10,000 devices. It is providing customer support effectively and efficiently through using Engage to remotely connect to the subscriber device to troubleshoot configuration-based problems - eliminating the need for visits to the customer home. Engage is embedded with Youfone's customer support workflow, streamlining subscriber engagement and resulting in high customer satisfaction and net promoter scores.

Youfone is also enjoying the benefits of being able to update their launcher based on their service goals, and then use Engage to point the new launcher to test users. When Youfone and its test users are happy with a new launcher it can be rolled out to its full subscriber base, with the update assigned to their production group. This drastically reduces the overhead associated with certifying a new firmware release just to update the launcher, and reduces the risk associated with a major firmware update.

In less than one year, Youfone has successfully deployed a TV service without adding any headcount, in part by virtue of using Amino Engage to manage devices and related updates and integrating Amino Engage into their customer support processes.

Interested in learning more about Amino Engage? Contact us at [e-mail].