Cantv in Venezuela to invest $400M in IPTV

TV Latam has posted an article saying that state owned Cantv in Venezuela will spend $400M on its IPTV system to reach 1.26 million subscribers using a system provided by ZTE. During the first trial stage of the project, Cantv will offer its service to 67.090 users who will have access to 140 channels.

Venezuela is taking a democratic approach and plans to offer a mass market service. This is a huge win for ZTE.

21K IPTV Subscribers in Latin America

TV Telco Latam published and article that states that Latin America recorded 21,495 IPTV clients in December 2008, which meant a 139% growth as compared to the same month in 2007.

Telco IPTV is just getting off the ground in Latin America. It faces major regulatory hurdles and strong cable and satellite competition.

UNE EPM of Columbia has 30K IPTV Subscribers

TV LATAM published an article that stated that UNE EPM in Medelin, Columbia has 30,000 IPTV subscribers. UNE plans to extend its service to Bogota and grow to 150,000 IPTV subscribers before the end of 2009.

TV LATAM said that this is the largest IPTV deployment in South America. There is significant potential in this continent for IPTV if the regulatory issues that exist in many companies are favorably resolved.

Strong Demand for TV in Columbia

TVTelco Daily published an article that describes a survey in Columbia that finds strong demand for TV services in both rural and urban homes. It found that there are 1.3 TVs per home in rural areas and 1.8 TV's per home in urban homes. It also found that 95 percent of rural homes have TV and 99 percent of urban homes have TVs.

The primary result of the survey was that both rural and urban homes prefer TV over all other media including radio, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet.

This indicates that there will be demand for IPTV services. The problem will be to match pricing with willingness to pay.

Telefonica Spain Adds 13K IPTV Subscribers in 3Q08

Telefonica added 13,000 IPTV subscribers in 3Q08, giving it 589,600 IPTV subscribers at the end of the quarter. Its O2 operation in the Czech Republic grew nearly as much, 10,200 IPTV subscribers, leaving it 108,100 subscribers at the end of the quarter.

Telefonica's total pay TV base grew by 130,000 subscribers to more than 2.1 million at the end of the quarter. The company has a significant satellite TV offering in South America, that accounts for nearly all of the increase. Its pay TV offering in Brazil is successful with 436,100 subscribers at the end of the quarter.

Telefonica does plan to introduce HDTV before the end of 2008.

Telefonica's IPTV business in Spain has hit a real flat spopt with a significant decrease in its quarterly adds over the last four quarters. It will have to take a different approach to get sales moving again. HD should help.

I believe that Telefonica is offering an IPTV service in Brazil, but it has not split out the IPTV vs. the satellite numbers.

Telco IPTV Barred in Argentina

An article in TV Telco Latam said that a ban has been upheld in Argentina that bans Telcos from offering cable services for the next 99 years. This was a ruling on the appeal of a ruling that banned Telcos from IPTV in Argentina in September 2007.

This kind of regulatory issue is common in Latin America and Asia, where there is a strong movement to protect the the cable companies from the Telcos. It could take years for these regulatory impediments to disappear.

Brasil Telecom's FTTH IPTV Strategy

TV Telco Latam published and article describing Brasil Telecom's plans to deploy FTTH to support IPTV services in six cities before the end of 2008. It will focus its FTTP deployment on the most prosperous neighborhoods.

The company currently offers IPTV over ADSL-2+. This service is not profitable today because regulation restricts it to video on demand service. It expects that new legislation will lift this restriction.

Brasil Telecom is following the example of other developing countries and moving directly to FTTH access networks. However, IPTV will not be a financially viable service in Brazil until it can offer broadcast content as well as video on demand.

Venezuela's Cantv IPTV Plans

TV Latam published an article describing the plans of Cantv, the state owned incumbent carrier in Venezuela for IPTV. The company is preparing the market for a 2010 IPTV service launch. It expects to have 800 thousand IPTV subscribers after five years. It plans to achieve a high penetration with subsidized services for the lowest-income sectors and a competitive offering for the other segments.

It is worth reading the TV Latam article because it discusses the political approach that Cantv is taking. As a major petroleum producer, Venezuela would seem to have the resources to pull this off.

IPTV Regulatory Squabble in Argentina

TV Telco Latam has published an article describing the battle between the Telcos and the cable companies over the regulation of IPTV in Argentina. It appears that the cable companies now have the advantage and have won a ruling that prevents the Telcos from offering IPTV.

TV Telco Latam is a good source of information about IPTV in Latin America. I read it regularly.

Brasil Telecom Launches IPTV

Brasil Telecom launched its Videon IPTV service in Brasilia, the nation's capital. Brasil Telecom is the third largest fixed line carrier in that country. The Videon service is a video on demand service. The regulator in Brazil does not permit the telcos there to offer broadcast services. The company will offer the video on demand content on a pay per view basis and as a subscription on demand package that provides up to 500 hours per month.

Brasil Telecom is testing the response to this service in Brasilia and plans to expand to other large cities later.

Telefonica Brasil has been reported to be working on an IPTV service in Sao Paolo. Oi, the largest carrier in Brazil has stated that it is investing $150 million on an IPTV service in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil is becoming an active IPTV market. It will be held back, though, until the regulators permit the telecom companies to offer broadcast services.

IPTV Regulatory Battle in Argentina

Fixed line incumbent Telefónica de Argentina will continue preparing for an IPTV launch even though it was warned by the Argentine regulator, Comfer, that it does not have the authorisation to do so. The company has stated that it would invest $98 million to launch an IPTV service called Speedy TV by the end of 2007.

Comfer has threatened to confiscate Telefónica ’s licence if it goes ahead and launches Speedy TV without authorisation. The government is drafting a new telecommunications law that will allow operators to offer bundled services of TV, voice and Internet over a single network. It appears that little work will be completed on this new law until the political in October are complete.

Regulatory issues seem to be a problem in Latin America. TelcoTV providers in Brazil are limited to only video on demand services. The market their should be strong, but it will pay not to get overly enthusiastic about this market. It will take a while for all of these issues to be resolved.

Telsur Offer IPTV in Chile

Telsur, a telco that operates in southern Chile, has introduced an IPTV service that offers 80 broadcast channels in response to Telefonica Chile's recent IPTV introduction in sections of Santiago described earlier in this blog.Telsur has invest $30 million to upgrade its broadband network, which has 50 thousand subscribers.

IPTV is starting to develop some momentum in South America. There are also efforts in Brazil, but the regulator there is not allowing the telco to offer broadcast services. Limiting the service to only video on demand makes the business case more difficult.

Telefonica Chile Introduces IPTV

The Chilean unit of Spains Telefónica has launched IPTV services in Santiago, its first in Latin America. Telefónica Chile has invested US $20 millionn into network upgrades and equipment purchases to facilitate the IPTV rollout.

The service is limited to the wealthier neighborhoods in the northeastern corner of Santiago.
The neighborhoods chosen for the rollout are the only areas where the network has sufficient bandwidth to handle 6Mbt channels needed to deliver the service. There are plans to expand the service to other parts of the city in 2008.

By the end of 2007, Telefónica expects to have some 3,000-5,000 IPTV subscribers. However, in the near term the service is only a complement to Telefónica's existing digital TV and satellite services.

The IPTV service offers video on demand, with some 240 hours of content available. Every month around 20% of that content will be updated.

At the end of May its competitor, VTR had a 71% share of the pay TV market, down from 77% at end-2006, according to Telefónica. The incumbent has had digital and satellite TV services for one year and at the end of May had a 14% market share with 156,547 clients, a 66% increase compared to the end of 2006.

This is a small beginning in IPTV for Telefónica in Chile. Don't expect dramatic growth. The broadband network there is not ready to support IPTV on a broad basis. This is also Telefónica's third pay TV service and will have to compete for resources within the company.