Ericsson Opens New Paris Facility

Ericsson has opened a new broadcast and media services facility in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris. The Mediadome houses a 3,000 square meter state-of-the-art TV facility as well as the offices of Canal+Overseas.

The opening ceremony on December 3 coincided with a Swedish state visit to France and was attended by Mikael Damberg, Sweden's Minister for Enterprise and Innovation.

A new Ericsson Mobility Report suggests video will account for more than half of all mobile data traffic by 2020. In recent years, the company has signed agreements with broadcasters such as NPO and NOS (Netherlands), Canal+, TV Monde and France 24 (France), HBO Nordic (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), and many others.

As a result of the Red Bee Media acquisition in 2014, Ericsson now has broadcast and media services agreements with new customers such as the BBC, BSkyB, BT Sport, Canal Digital, Channel 4, Channel 5, EE, ITV, UKTV, UPC, Virgin Media, and many others.

Jacques du Puy, Head of Canal+ Overseas, said: "As a leader in the creation and distribution of premium and thematic channels, our core focus is on producing the quality content and programming that our customers rely on to keep them informed and up-to-date. We therefore need a partner we can trust to manage the ingestion, technical production and playout for our 22 core channels. Ericsson's expertise in both broadcasting and managed services allows us to deliver premium-quality services to our subscribers."

Thorsten Sauer, Head of Broadcast and Media Services in Ericsson, said: "For Ericsson, it is very important to be close to our customers while providing them with the benefits of the global scale and capability of our company. Viewers increasingly have the opportunity to watch their favorite content on a smartphone or tablet – wherever they are and whenever they want. This is having a significant impact on media consumption patterns and is driving rapid development in broadcast technologies. As a leading provider in this area, Ericsson offers a wide range of services to support this transformation. Mediadome is a landmark in this development and our capability strategy."

www.ericsson.com

(IT/JP)