TiVo has opened its Caspa service, which offers pay movies and TV series for download via a broadband connection, to all-comers.Before today, you had to be a Telecom Broadband customer to access Caspa.However, Telecom Broadband customers retain one
TiVo has opened its Caspa service, which offers pay movies and TV series for download via a broadband connection, to all-comers.
Before today, you had to be a Telecom Broadband customer to access Caspa.
However, Telecom Broadband customers retain one advantage: unmetered data.
Customers of other ISPs will have to effectively pay twice for movies, by dint of the fact that data (between 1.3GB and 2GB per movie) will go toward their monthly usage allowance.
TiVo set-top boxes and the associated Caspa download service are licensed in Australasia to Hybrid TV, one third owned by TVNZ, two-thirds by Seven Media. Telecom was appointed TiVo's exclusive retail partner for its launch in October last year.
By Telecom's own admission, early TiVo sales have been slow.
TiVo's lack ongoing inability to gain onscreen listings for Prime, and temperamental Caspa performance, have been among ongoing issues.
Now that their subscribers can access Caspa (if they buy a TiVo box), will other ISPs unmeter its data?
Orcon would seem a logical candidate by dint of the fact it already offers unmetered data for a number of services, including TVNZondemand videos.
But Orcon chief executive Scott Bartlett was having none of it when contacted by NBR:
He said he would consider not counting Caspa downloads toward a monthly cap.
"However we have some requirements before we zero-rate content - so TiVo would need to meet those," Mr Bartlett said.
And it seems Orcon - a tad disillusioned after its previous attempts at contact - is unlikely to initiate the discussion.
"We've asked to meet the TiVo people in the past but have been refused a meeting - so they're clearly not interested in dealing with us," said Mr Bartlett.
Still, if Hybrid wants to get back in touch, the Orcon chief executive said he would take the call.
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A bloody annoyance
