Saturday, March 29, 2008

Smart Telecom to Launch IPTV in Ireland

Competitive provider Smart Telecom will start a soft launch of its IPTV service in April. It will select customers on short loops in order to better manage service quality during this initial phase.

The new service will be capable of delivering more than 100 TV and radio channels to 550 thousand homes across Ireland, where it has 37 unbundled exchanges. The service will also include time shifting that can allow viewers to watch programs broadcast the previous.

Smart is making a €2.5m investment in an MPEG 4 IPTV headend and middleware solution from Thomson.

This is the second IPTV service from a competitive carrier in Ireland. It leaves Eircom with two IPTV competitors and as the only Western European incumbent with no announced plans for IPTV.

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