Dale Bassen

Dale Bassen is vice president of Engineering and Service Operations for VTR GlobalCom S.A. in Chile.

A year ago, you announced an expansion plan for your digital video platform. Could you give us a quick update?

VTR has had major success in the launch of our digital TV product in Santiago and three other major cities in Chile, and we project more than 100,000 customers for this year, which is extraordinary. We are very pleased with the market response to this service, and on the basis of this success we will continue to expand digital TV availability in our major markets in Chile throughout 2007.

We have a digital entry package branded “D-BOX” that offers EPG, parental control, music and PPV for $3.50/month, which allows customers to enjoy the benefits of digital TV at a very reasonable price. The flexibility of D-BOX allows us to offer multiple premium tiers as well as creative bundling packages with our existing telephony and HSD services.

A significant element in our strategy is that customers can obtain their D-Box kit from retail and VTR store-front channels directly and self-install their own service. This has proven to be a popular option for customers, and retailers are pleased with the up-sell option for customers considering purchase of flat panel TV sets.

In 2007, we will continue to expand the range of D-BOX services and content, which will allow VTR to maintain our leadership in the digital video market. Our partnership with Motorola, Aptiv and SeaChange provides us with a great platform that allows rapid development and rollout of new services that should continue to drive increased demand for the suite of digital video services.

What other digital video technologies are you especially interested in deploying?

D-BOX is simply the first phase in our digital strategy, and we plan to introduce a host of value-add services over time that will expand the customer options and benefits associated with digital video. Clearly, VOD, PVR and HDTV are on our roadmap, and we are assessing interactive and convergent services. For VTR, the real power of the digital set-top is that we can begin to integrate telephony and Internet-related services in ways that will strengthen our triple play offering of telephony, HSD and video. I think our customers will be delighted with the new and innovative services we are planning for 2007.

You deployed a CSR-1 system in mid-2006, which indicates a lot of traffic on your network. What do you consider the recent benchmarks of success on your high-speed data platform?

VTR’s HSD customer base grew by 30 percent this year, and we currently have more than 400,000 customers. We still see considerable growth opportunities in Chile, and on the basis of our long-range business plan, it was essential for us to have a routing platform that could easily scale while providing ultra high availability and flexibility. For these reasons, the Cisco CSR-1 represented the best value from an investment protection perspective.

The market response to our HSD offering clearly is our benchmark of success. VTR continues to be the leader in terms of residential broadband, and I think the key elements have been our service and our innovation. VTR was the first to launch HSD in 1999, and from that moment, we have continued to lead the market. In fact, VTR continues to be the only company in Latin America that offers a 10 Mb service. The other critical element has been our commitment to customer service. VTR has recently won a national award for “Top 10 Service providers of the Year” for our Internet as well as cable TV service. We believe that our service levels are on par with the best ISPs in North America, and the fact that 90 percent of our HSD data customers have two or more services from VTR is testimony that our strategy of service excellence coupled with leading edge innovation is a winning combination.

How has the deployment of voice impacted your technical operations?

VTR is unique in this respect in that we have been offering telephony since 1997, so we have extensive experience in supporting this service. Companies like VTR and Cox were the first companies in the world to launch telephony over coax using the Cornerstone product that was offered by Arris and Nortel. We currently have eight DMS100 switches as well as two CS2K Nortel softswitches in operation with more than 480,000 lines in service. In fact, Pyramid Research awarded VTR the “Best Telecommunications Company in Latin America for 2003,” so we were well positioned for telephony over IP (ToIP). We introduced our carrier-grade ToIP service in 2004, but we already had the operational model and support systems necessary to facilitate our transition to ToIP. Our service availability figures indicate we are on par with major American MSOs, but I believe with the emerging set of diagnostic systems, we can move to a more proactive position by detecting and resolving problems before they become service-affecting. As more of our customer base acquires multiple services from VTR, it is becoming more important for us to evolve to a more proactive service management strategy.

How is VTR positioned with respect to the business/enterprise services market?

VTR has and will continue to focus on the residential and SOHO market since this has been our strength and we do not want to lose focus. Clearly, the business/enterprise market is very competitive and would require a custom business and operational model, which is not our priority at present.

Do you face any unique engineering or operational challenges in Chile?

Chile presents some unique geographic operational challenges since we have more than 15,000 km of aerial HFC network in 34 cities. Chile stretches over 4,300 km along the southwestern coast of South America, a distance roughly the same as that from San Francisco to New York, while at the same time its width is a corridor approximately 240 km (150 miles) wide. This means we must maintain networks exposed to a variety of conditions such as hot desert sun, corrosion from salt air for cities along the coast, as well as extensive rainfall, which is experienced in the south. It is mandatory that we have a solid network maintenance program in order to achieve our objectives associated with availability and repair times.

Another unique challenge is piracy control since there exist problems associated with theft of cable TV service. Not only does this result in lost revenue, but unauthorized activity on our network also disrupts service and impairs signal quality. This is why VTR has developed a sophisticated anti-piracy plan, which has been acknowledged by Fox as the best in Latin America.

VTR is generally acknowledged as the leader of triple play services in the South American MSO industry. This creates unique challenges in terms of recruiting, developing and maintaining a skilled work force in a very specialized set of technologies. Since there does not exist a labor pool outside of VTR for these requirements, we must select and train our people internally. This has turned out to be a major advantage for VTR since we have been able to recruit some the best people in Chile, who are highly motivated and passionate about their work. Over the years, VTR has created an outstanding team in every major area, and we won an award for “the best place to work” in 2005. We have successfully created a team that has the ability to rapidly execute and implement strategies that have repeatedly positioned us a leader in the market.