Pay TV and digital media industry vet Ian Aaron has been named president of Frequency, an Internet video company that recently landed an $11 million round of funding from a group that included Liberty Global.

In his new role, Aaron will head up global distribution, content licensing and business development for the Los Angeles-based cloud-based internet video service, which aggregates and distributes content from a wide range of producers and integrates them with several platforms via a single license.

Frequency, which is working with MVPDs to integrate OTT fare with set-top boxes, allows partners to generate “personalized channels” that tap into social media and other data that can uncover their interests and provide offerings that expand and enhance traditional TV platforms. “We can look at a show you’re watching on TV — VOD or live — and automatically discover programming related to what you’re watching,” Blair Harrison, Frequency’s founder and CEO, said in a recent interview (subscription required).

Aaron is late of several companies in the telecom, media and tech sectors, including Gemstar TV Guide International (now part of  Rovi), where he was president; and was CEO of TVN Entertainment (now Vubiquity).  He was also CEO of ConnecTV, a startup that was focused on social TV apps, a director at datacasting specialist Dotcast, and was a top exec at SoftNet Systems, a broadband pioneer that once ran a subsidiary called ISP Channel that, in its heyday, provided turn-key cable modem services to MSOs.

“Ian has been an advisor to Frequency since we started the company six years ago,” Harrison said in a statement. “He brings a unique breadth of experience to us, having built and run businesses from TV to digital media. His leadership is going to be invaluable to us as we continue our rapid global expansion.”

“Frequency has built a comprehensive video platform that has been validated by some of the top MVPDs and mobile operators,” said Aaron. “With the increase in popularity and quality of content from multi-channel and digital networks, we have a unique opportunity to integrate a format of programming into the current TV bundle that attracts a new and younger audience.”

Frequency, a firm that aggregates Internet video for distribution on set-tops and mobile devices, said it has secured $11 million in equity financing from a group that includes Liberty Global, YOU On Demand and Oakmont Corp.

Frequency, a Los Angeles based company founded in 2010, said it will use the funds to fuel growth, including international distribution and on the ongoing development of its distribution platform. Frequency claims that it provides Internet video services to over 100 million subs for TV, mobile and OTT operators worldwide.

The company aggregates and distributes content from a wide range of producers and integrates them with several platforms via a single license. According to the company, it can integrate with partner video ad systems, and have those companies sell the ads. It’s already integrated with “most leading” ad platforms and exchanges and can sell, serve and deliver ads on behalf of its distribution partners. Sling TV is among the distribution partners listed on the company’s web site.

Frequency, which timed the announcement with this week’s TV of Tomorrow Show in San Francisco, told Varietythat Ziggo, Liberty Global’s MSO in the Netherlands, will start to offer Web videos from Frequency on set-tops in Q3 2016.

Liberty Global has been eager to fuse OTT content and apps at the set-top level, with UPC Hungary’s integration of YouTube among recent examples. Liberty Global is also pushing ahead with a next-gen cloud-based set-top box/video platform, code-named EOS, that’s expected to enter trials later this year.

Inge Smidts, chief marketing officer at Liberty Global, is joining the Frequency’s board of directors.

The financing “lets us accelerate our growth and expand the reach of our platform for both content providers and operators, globally. We’re delighted to be in business with this great combination of financial and strategic partners to help us drive that growth,” Blair Harrison, CEO of Frequency, said in a statement.

In the U.S., MVPDs have also begun to tie new forms of OTT content at the set-top. Comcast, for example, offers content from Watchable, its new ad-supported, aggregated OTT video service, on mobile devices as well as X1 set-tops. 

Video will continue to deepen its dominance of Internet traffic as volumes increase four-fold between 2015 and 2020, according to a new report from Cisco Systems.

Internet video will account for 79% global Internet traffic by 2020, up 63% in 2015, Cisco found in its latest Visual Networking Index, a study that bases its findings on a mix of independent analyst forecasts and “real-world” network usage data.

Viewed another way, the Internet will support 3 trillion Internet video minutes per month by 2020, which equates to 5 million years of video per month, or about 1 million video minutes every second, Cisco said.

HD and Ultra HD Internet video will make up 82% of Internet video traffic by 2020, up from 53% in 2015, the report forecasted.

Broken down by sector, consumer video traffic will rise to 82% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2020, up from 68% in 2015, while business Internet video traffic will represent 66% of traffic in that category by 2020, up from 44% in 2015.

Virtual reality will also take a bite of bandwidth. VR-based traffic quadrupled in 2015, and is expected to increase 61-fold by 2020, Cisco said.

On a broader basis, global IP traffic will nearly triple at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22% over the next five years, as more than 1 billion new Internet users join the mix worldwide – growing from 3 billion in 2015 to 4.1 billion by 2020. Apps such as video surveillance, smart meters, digital health monitors and other machine-to-machine services will all contribute to big traffic boosts, Cisco predicted.

Global IP traffic is expected to reach 194.4 exabytes per month by 2020, up from 72.5 exabytes per month in 2015, Cisco said.

Global broadband speeds are also poised to nearly double from 24.7 Mbps in 2015 to 47.7 Mbps by 2020, the report found. Notably, 71% of total IP traffic will original from non-PC devices, such as tablets, smartphones and TVs, versus 47% in 2015. Smartphones will pump out 30% of total IP traffic by 2020, Cisco said.

Over the next five years, global IP networks will support 10 billion new devices and connections, increasing from 16.3 billion in 2015 to 26.3 billion by 2020, Cisco said, adding that there will be 3.4 devices and connections per capita by 2020, versus 2.2 per capita in 2015.

On the WiFi front, Cisco sees total public hotspots including home spots, surging from 64 million in 2015, to 432 million by 2020. Home spots are expected to grow from 57 million (2015) to 423 million by 2020.

Showing an increased willingness to embrace OTT video, Frontier Communications announced this week that new high-speed Internet subscribers are in line for a free year of Amazon Prime, the subscription offering that provides free two-day shipping and access to the Amazon Prime video library, Prime Music and the Kindle Owner’ Lending Library.

Amazon Prime regularly costs $99 per year.

Frontier noted that the offer, which is good through Jan. 4, 2016,  is also being extended to new subs who sign up for TV and other services. Among the fine print, current voice-only customers can qualify for the Amazon Prime offer, though anyone who takes them up on it must stay for a year or be subject to an early termination fee up to $100, ensuring that Frontier can recoup the cost of the subscription. 

Frontier is also working  with TiVo on a co-branded version of the TiVo Roamio OTA that will be targeted to broadband-only subs. The model also supports OTT apps such as Amazon Prime Video.

“We are delighted to offer customers an opportunity that combines a great digital experience with popular Amazon Prime benefits,” Jessica Sokolowski, VP of corporate marketing and advertising for Frontier, said in a statement.  “I have been an Amazon Prime member for years and love the free shipping and unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of movies and TV shows. The timing of this offer couldn’t be better, giving our new broadband customers the ability to ship holiday gifts for free.”

Here’s the Frontier commercial about it, starring company mascot, Francis "Frank" A. Buffalo:

Qwilt, a startup that specializes in “transparent” caching systems, said it has landed a $25 million “D” round, expanding its total funding to about $65 million.

Tel Aviv/New York-based VC Disrupt-ive led the round with a $16 million investment, with help from Cisco Investments and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. Existing investors Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Marker LLC and Redpoint Ventures also contributed to the round.

Qwilt said it will use the fresh funds from this “strategic” round of funding to build scale, speed up its go-to-market strategy, enhance its flagship product, Qwilt Video Fabric, and to expand support to tier 1 operators worldwide.

Rather than serving as a specialized edge cache, such as the one Netflix uses for its Open Connect private CDN program, Qwilt’s is “transparent” (though the company styles its system as “open”) in the sense that it monitors and caches online video from multiple sources to help partners save on network transport costs.

That sort of set up will continue to come in handy as video continues to represent more and more of the composition of the Internet’s traffic. Cisco Systems forecasted in its recent Video Networking Index that video will represent 80% of all IP traffic globally by 2019.

Among MSOs, Mediacom Communications has rolled out Qwilt’s transparent video caching platform to boost the quality of online video delivered via its broadband network.  Qwilt, which said sales grew 400% year-over-year in 2014, also works with mobile carriers, telcos and university networks.

Qwilt is also a member of the recently launched Streaming Video Alliance, a group that is focused on open caching standards and streaming video infrastructure and counts Comcast, Charter, Liberty Global, EPIX among its founding members.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission will give the industry and public a little more time to comment on the proposal to classify linear over-the-top video providers as multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), at least for the purposes of nondiscriminatory access to programming — just not as much of it as they had requested.

Several parties, including the National Association of Broadcasters and Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (with the support of the American Cable Association), had pointed to the complexity of the issues involved and asked for an extra 30 days to comment.

"The commission’s general policy is not to grant extensions of time routinely," Media Bureau chief Bill Lake said in granting an extension, "but we find that given the complex issues involved here, the public interest warrants an extension of the comment and reply comment deadlines. Although the parties seek a 30-day extension, we believe that a two-week extension will give the public enough time to respond to the NPRM."

Comments are now due by March 3; reply comments must be filed by March 18. (The NAB and the other parties had sought deadlines of March 19 and April 3).

The FCC voted last December to propose giving linear OVDs nondiscriminatory access to cable-affiliated programming and local-TV station broadcasts, regardless of whether or not the distribution is facilities-based. That decision raises lots of questions about how to apply that definition and the ramifications of doing so.

The idea is to help promote online video as a competitor to traditional cable and satellite providers. The FCC has said that a technology-neutral definition of MVPD should yield more programming choices.

"Video is no longer tied to a certain transmission technology, so our interpretation of MVPD should not be tied to transmission facilities," FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said when the item was up for a vote.

In the past, the FCC has tentatively concluded that an MVPD must have a distribution facility to meet that classification.

Online retailer Overstock.com is getting into the content game, announcing plans at a kick-off press conference at NATPE in Miami on Tuesday to offer a video streaming subscription service that will be tied to the site’s Club O loyalty program.

“We have this tremendous traffic and we have a deep understanding of our customers,” said Overstock.com CEO Patrick M. Byrne. “We know what they are looking for.”

Byrne said that Overstock.com has a partnership with an unnamed third party that owns rights to mostly movies but also TV shows, and that it intends to initially launch a download-to-own or –rent service in the middle of this year. The service will also include games, music and other original content. Stage two will be launching a subscription video-on-demand service (SVOD) that may eventually include original programming.

“We chose NATPE because as we’ve been spinning this effort out, we’ve discovered that NATPE is the place to go, it’s where the deal making happens,” said Byrne. “We are here to deepen our relationships in this industry. When this gets launched, we intend to be a player in original content.”

Read the full story at B&C.

Piksel, the supplier of multiscreen video platforms, said it, in partnership with VISTA Worldlink, won the deal to design and implement the systems running the Western Athletic Conference’s Digital Network.

The WAC’s Digital Network, which uses Piksel’s Digital Stadium platform to manage content, offers access to the WAC’s live and archived sports coverage across the conference’s eight member schools (California State University Bakersfield, Chicago State University, Grand Canyon University, University of Missouri-Kansas City, New Mexico State, Seattle University, University of Texas–Pan American, and Utah Valley). The WAC Digital Network is offered through iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, Web browsers and Roku devices.

“It has always been one of our goals to showcase the talents of our student athletes across different sports, and with the Digital Network we can now bring our fans closer to their favorite sports, beyond the physical arena,” WAC Commissioner Jeff Hurd said, in a statement. “We are reaching new levels of exposure and giving fans the best possible experience with high quality broadcasting on a global scale.”

On the tech side, WAC content is distributed to VISTA Worldlink directly via IP, then ingested by the Piksel management/publishing platform. The WAC also lists NeuLion as a key tech partner.

Piksel initiated a relaunch earlier this year that included the introduction of a new modular OTT video platform for content owners, aggregators, and distributors.