Mumbai-based entertainment company Fropcorn has launched an entertainment-on-demand service at Hyderabad International airport. The service is live at the security hold area of the domestic terminal, and is expected to be extended to other parts of the airport. The service lets users connect to its WiFi at the airport, from where users can quickly download movies and other content to watch on the go. Users will need the platform’s app before being able to download these movies. The movies are available for a set price, and after paying, users are able to download the movie apparently within 3 minutes. Users can get a refund for the movie if they haven’t started watching it within 7 days of date of purchase. Fropcorn essentially has hyperlocal servers located at certain travel access points, although it's not clear where else the service is currently active. These servers distribute content, on authorization on local WiFi, enabling high speed local file transfer, as opposed to streaming through the internet using mobile data. The company mentions that it plans to launch access points at other airports and high footfall locations. MediaNama’s take: Fropcorn’s take on being a mobile streaming service as such is unique and should be useful to users for avoiding wasting data when travelling. How well the company will do depends entirely on how many such data centres it is able to establish. Establishing 100s of data centres and storing thousands of movies in them each is going to be pretty expensive. As such,…
