France’s Bouygues Telecom is installing Pace’s Helium Unified Gateway Software to enable faster rollouts of new services and apps across a range of gateway devices.
Bouygues Telecom, which provides mobile, fixed line, Internet and TV services to residential and business customers, will sell Pace’s new Helium software across all of its new BBOX Sensation gateways, as well as legacy devices, in 1.3 million subscriber homes across France. The Pace software allows Bouygues Telecom to have full control over the platform moving forward, so that it can deploy updates easily when needed.
Instead of working separately with each gateway vendor, Helium’s hardware-agnostic design enables Bouygues Telecom to remotely manage and deploy services or technical changes across all gateway devices in subscribers’ homes, regardless of vendor.
With Helium, Bouygues Telecom can now test and qualify on one gateway solution, eliminating the need for vendor-specific integration work when changes are made.
“For us to continue the rapid growth we’ve enjoyed over the last few years, we must stay one step ahead,” said Yves Caseau, executive vice president of technologies, innovation and services at Bouygues Telecom. “To deliver the latest and greatest entertainment experience to our subscribers, we simply cannot afford to wait for technology partners to carry out complex integration projects in order to get a new TV service or social media application into homes.
“Pace’s Helium design and flexible approach means that, working with their team, we can train our own software engineers to work with the platform, allowing us to evolve our own services as and when we need. Pace was the only technology provider to give us the option of real speed and autonomy, making them the clear partner of choice.”
Bouygues Telecom’s gateway platform was designed to enable the operator to offer subscribers the latest in TV and IP-based services as soon as they become available. As well as providing the Helium software, Pace has provided integration, training and consulting services. Bouygues Telecom aims to have completed deployment of the new platform to all 1.3 million of its subscribers’ homes by the end of this year.
“We believe that customers should be able to control their own services and how these evolve,” Shane McCarthy, president of Pace International, said. “In some cases, they want Pace to stay fully involved and drive developments for them. In others, the customer wants to manage their own software.
“Helium’s design, supported by Pace’s professional services, gives operators such as Bouygues Telecom this option, providing full flexibility for platform developments and easily integrating with other software platforms, applications and hardware as customers’ needs change.”
