Telecom companies around the world are looking to engage their customers with more than just voice and data services. As saturation points reach near 100 percent, they are adding entertainment services to increase revenues. Deutsche Telekom, one of the largest operators in the world, has launched its Entertain to go service using Cisco's (News - Alert) Videoscape Distribution Suite (VDS), which provides the telecom with the capability to offer multiscreen services with enhanced content delivery technology.

The Cisco VDS is part of the company's Videoscape Unity TV services delivery solution, which gives service providers the tools to distribute video content on multiple screens, applications, networks, and protocols. As the network distribution engine behind the Videoscape architecture, VDS is an open, component-based, complete, interoperable, and all-inclusive solution that connects the functionality of the cloud and the network. This gives network operators a better understanding into the management of content delivery networks, ensuring the consumer will always have access no matter what device or platform they are using.

Key features of the Cisco solution include giving Deutsche Telekom (News - Alert) the ability to manage many of the ways it monitors its delivery network. A customizable reporting and dashboard allows it to identify and resolve any concerns and deliver quality service.

Using the Cisco VDS features with unique capabilities provides a complete solution building on the content delivery network (CDN) service footprint with more than three million cloud-based time-shifted and live video streams delivered serving 50 global customers.

The Cisco Videoscape Distribution Suite Service Manager (VDS SM) provides a low total cost of ownership (TCO) analytics and reporting solution that gives the operator insight into the CDN infrastructure.

By consolidating live origin services and recording, edge caching particularly for OTT content, Radio Access Network (RAN) optimization, real-time CDN analytics and remote provisioning capabilities VDS simplifies CDN management thereby reducing operating costs.

The Entertain to Go service gives users who are part of Deutsche Telekom's Entertain IPTV (News - Alert) service access to 40 TV channels on their smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Using the home Wi-Fi network they will be able to view on demand content from the company's video library as well as the Entertain content for a monthly subscription fee of €4.95, or around $6.50.

With Video Everywhere users will be able to:

Receive dynamic contextual content on any screen

• Rapidly discover content with unified keyword global search and personalized recommendations from any source, across all customer devices
• Select on-demand content from an online catalog
• Use trick modes (pause, rewind, and fast forward) to view on-demand content
• Browse a unified user interface on all devices, including a 7-day program guide, full program synopses, "Now and Next" banner, and channel up and down navigation
• Use social TV applications to share and recommend content with friends

"Working with Cisco to bring the 'Entertain to go' service to market has been a very positive experience characterized by flexibility and speed of reacting to our specific requirements. The Cisco team was strongly committed to developing and deploying new features within the desired time frame, which enabled us to bring this new service to our customers in a very short time," said Holger Diekmann, technical project lead Entertain to Go and senior expert service management, Telekom Deutschland.