Vantrix launches mobile advertising platform

By Dan Butcher

November 13, 2008

The Weather Channel's WAP

Vantirix has launched a mobile platform to help carriers and content providers deploy mobile advertising and protect against malware and unsolicited messages.

In addition to serving mobile advertising for brands such as The Weather Channel, Vantrix is offering carriers malware protection and revenue-driving applications for their converged networks.

Vantrix, a provider of content adaptation and optimization services for converged wireless, broadband and cable networks, has launched Media Controller. It has been implemented with several network operators and mobile entertainment companies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United States.

"In North America, the Weather Channel has offered a service using our technology to allow WAP users to get video weather updates -- consumers are sending us 5,000 videos per day--and we stream many more than that," said Patrick Lopez, chief marketing officer for Vantrix, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

"Media Controller creates relevant and targeted ads for their videos," he said.

Patrick Lopez is the chief marketing officer for Vantrix

The Weather Channel is one of top five WAP sites in world in terms of traffic.

Vantrix has been serving mobile pre-roll video ads on the Weather Channel's WAP site for almost a year.

T-Mobile is a Vantrix customer in Europe for mobile TV.

The carrier Orange, France Telecom's British brand, uses the Vantrix plaform for MMS, letting its consumers send and receive pictures messages.

Vantrix can add animation, a logo, banner ad or video ad to each message.

"We've seen over the last few months an increase in the need of carriers to efficiently manage traffic going through their network," Mr. Lopez said. "They want to control who has ability to send and receive content, who has access to what type of content and to enrich the media sent to subscribers to enrich the user experience."

Media Controller is designed to bring significant OPEX and CAPEX savings to Vantrix customers.

The Vantrix Media Controller is a policy enforcement point for multimedia content and services.

It allows wireless, broadband, and cable operators to enforce rules and policies on multimedia traffic.

It is designed to increase carriers' revenue by facilitating the launch and introduction of services such as mobile advertising.

Media Controller also extends support for iPhone devices by providing a means to interface with multimedia messaging, or MMS.

Media Controller can also help carriers ensure the integrity of their networks by providing a set of mechanisms to prevent malware and other types of malicious or unsolicited multimedia content from reaching subscribers.

"Demand from carriers for these types of services is a trend we've seen globally, which started in Asia with the concerns of operators to protect their network and to prevent spam and viruses from going through their network," Mr. Lopez said. "More recently, carriers in North America have been experiencing some of the same issues."

Vantrix claims that its platform helps carriers to product their capital expenditures, reduce expenditures of disgruntled customers calling their call centers and reduce churn.

"When users get fed up with spam and viruses, they tend to go to the competition," Mr. Lopez said.

"We also offer opportunities for new revenue streams, because we provide the capacity to modify messages, including branding or advertising content that enriches the brand and creates a deeper connection with consumers with an advertising-based business model," he said.

Media Controller is an integral component of the company's core software platform, Mediadvance on which all Vantrix products and services are built.

This approach provides Vantrix customers with a single point for the management, provisioning and administration of all their multimedia services.

Network operators benefit by being better able to deliver more multimedia content including MMS, music, videos, mobile TV, Web TV, cable TV and user-generated content.

Vantrix Media Controller key features include anti-spam, content filtering, anti-virus, advertising insertion and MMS-to-email.

Featuring advanced heuristics algorithms, Vantrix Media Controller is designed to protect subscribers from abuse by blocking unsolicited MMS messages.

By inspecting content for suspicious extensions, Vantrix Media Controller is able to filter MMS that may be unsuitable for the intended recipient, based on configurable attributes such as content type, size, origin and/or destination.

Vantrix Media Controller protects the network from harmful traffic by filtering out self-replicating virus-infected multimedia messages.

Vantrix Media Controller enriches content by dynamically inserting customized banners, animations, slides, text, audio and video into multimedia messages, Video on Demand or mobile TV and radio services.

Vantrix Media Controller allows network operators to bridge the gap between MMS and wireless email users.

As more and more devices are introduced in the market, it is important for carriers to be able to enable communities to communicate seamlessly.

For instance, the MMS-to-email feature allows iPhone users to exchange multimedia messages with the rest of the wireless community.

Vantrix offers a suite of solutions that delivers any multimedia content to any device to drive consumer adoption of premium mobile services.

The company currently has more than 55 customers globally.

Vantrix has built a database of 14,000 device profiles, which covers more than 3,500 devices.

"Our database is unique in its depth and granularity in order to provide highest level of knowledge of each device's capabilities," Mr. Lopez said. "All ads are adapted in real time to meet every device's capabilities.

"Demand from wireless network operators, cable providers with a three-screen strategy, content aggregator and content vendors that want to subsidize the delivery of content and services prompted us to launch this product," he said. "Media Controller can help clients reinforce and modify their media flow, from messaging and browsing downloads to real-time video and audio streaming."