Dec 4, 2001 12:00 PM,

Exent 'playing games' with Bell Canada’s broadband network

Jim Barthold

Extent Technologies and Bell Canada are teaming up to deliver subscription-based game-on-demand services to Canadian subscribers who tap into Bell Canada’s Gamesmania service. Anyone with a Canadian ZIP code and access to a broadband connection will have access to a variety of interactive games for a variety of prices.

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“It is restricted to Canadian users,” said Bruce Lawhorn, Exent’s vice president. “But all you need is a broadband connection.”

Gamesmania offers up different subscription levels at different prices, including a monthly plan with access to multiple games. Exent provides the technology that makes it possible to get access to those games without overwhelming a computer’s capacity, a plus since a typical game, installed on a PC, consumes huge amounts of memory.

“We have to reduce the amount that needs to be downloaded and insulate the user from any of the painful and arduous installation and configuration,” said Lawhorn. “We actually break the game up into 32 kilobit bytes and stream those bytes down to the desktop. We know the order of execution for all those little blocks and we stream what you need when you need it. If you wanted to download the game, it would be a two- or three-CD install download.”

Lawhorn called the games delivery system the "killer application for broadband.”

“Broadband isn’t that compelling,” he said. “It's not required for the things you do on the Internet. It’s nice to have … but people are looking for that killer ap. Bell Canada, with 800,000 [broadband] subscribers, opens up a world of value-added revenues and new services.”

Exent, Lawhorn emphasized, does not offer its own gaming portal, nor does it intend to start doing so. It serves as a middleman between the content provider and the delivery network.

“As the technology facilitator, we don’t have to get into the investment of spinning up a game service,” he said. What we would rather do is be the facilitator for a dozen of these services rather than spin up our own.”