Telus, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, signed a six-year deal with digital-rights-management vendor Widevine Technologies to provide downloadable-content protection software for Telus’ IPTV, mobile-phone and Internet-based video services, the companies announced Monday.
Brian Baker, CEO of privately held Widevine, said the deal will be worth about $5 million over the first two years and could reach $40 million over the term of the contract as Telus adds video subscribers.
“The growth opportunity here is massive,” he added.
Telus -- an investor in Widevine -- has 10.4 million customers, including 4.7 million wireless-phone subscribers and 1 million Internet subscribers.
The telco will use Widevine’s Cypher Virtual SmartCard client software with the Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm to provide conditional access to ScientificAtlanta IPTV set-top boxes. Telus will also use Widevine’s Digital Copy Protection software on PCs that customers use to download and distribute content.
“Many of our service-provider customers are now looking at using our technology not only on set-tops, but also on PCs and mobile phones,” Baker said.
Seattle-based Widevine has received funding from Telus, Cisco Systems, Charter Ventures and others. Its key competitors are NDS Group, Nagravision and Irdeto Access.
