Digital+ Collaborates with Cisco to Enhance the Delivery of Video Entertainment

This agreement constitutes a strategic relationship for the development of iPlus, the new generation decoder of Digital+

JULY 26, 2011 – Digital+, the leading company in the pay-as-you-go Internet Protocol television market in Spain, has signed an important agreement with Cisco, the world technology leader in network and infrastructure solutions for the Internet, for the further technological development of iPlus, Digital+’s new-generation decoder, to enhance viewing and interaction with video entertainment.

Prisa TV, part of the Prisa Group, owners of Digital+, also agreed that Cisco will provide financing through Cisco Capital^® for the technological development of iPlus, which will allow Prisa TV to pursue its interest in the latest technology, and reinforce its leadership position in the Spanish market.

Pedro García Guillén, the managing director of Prisa TV, highlighted the importance of this agreement and its future value: “The collaboration between Digital+ and Cisco is critical for our digital transformation process. We can continue to develop the production of our iPlus with the contribution of financing and leading technology. And from the customer services point of view, it allows us to fulfil our promise to offer the best content with the most advanced technology.”

According to Kamal Bherwani, director general of the Digital Area of the Prisa Group, “An enormous transformation is taking place in the distribution of videos and the integration of this distribution with interactive technologies, including social media. The agreement with an innovative partner like Cisco will allow Digital+ to give its clients top-level entertainment experience, combining best-quality content and interactive experiences.”

For José Manuel Petisco, director general of Cisco España, “the audiovisual market is now at an important turning point, marked by the desire of users to access the content they want, when they want it, and from any device. This new collaboration with one of the leaders of the sector, the PRISA Group, responds to this requirement and by means of this, Cisco España is reinforcing its commitment and leadership in the area of the distribution of audiovisual and multimedia content, not only at the technological level but also including specific technical and human resources.”

For his part, Santiago Lopéz, director of the service provider division in Cisco España, states that: “The collaboration between Cisco and Prisa will make it possible to develop TV platforms by bringing in new content, new ways of accessing the content and new capacities for user choice, which all amounts to a real a la carte service.”

iPlus, the terminal that changed the way of watching television

Digital+ will take this combined innovative technology, developed for Digital+, into the homes of clients of the platform.

iPlus is currently the leading advanced terminal on the market  that makes it possible to benefit from high-definition and 3-D broadcasts of the Digital+ Platform. iPlus has a large-capacity hard disk to record and reproduce the programming of Digital+ at any time, synchronise with Spanish free-to-air digital television TDT, retain live broadcasting or view it again, rewind the latest sequences, plan to record regular series of programs and, definitively, get closer to television content by seeing every detail.

At present, the iPlus is available in more than 300,000 homes (with a base of more than 1,800,000 Digital+ clients) which positively enhances its value. As a result of customer satisfaction with iPlus, the clients of Digital+ declare that with this decoder they use television more, according to a study completed by the platform, and 81% of them even affirm that the iPlus has changed their way of watching television, with 88% placing DIGITAL+ at the forefront of pay-as-you-go television thanks to iPlus.

Acerca PRISA TV

PRISA TV is an audiovisual company from Prisa Group, which is also the owner of Digital+, the leading platform within the pay per view sector in Spain. With more than 1.8000.000 pay users, Digital+ has been a pioneer in the production and deployment of digital, HD television, 3D television and the development of interactive services.

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