Telia Adds 22K IPTV Subscribers in 1Q09

Telia Sonera added 22,000 IPTV subscribers across all of its operations in 1Q09, leaving with with a total of 509,000 at the end of the quarter. The country by country results were:

• Sweden added 9,000 new subscribers, giving it a total of 333,000 at the end of the quarter.
• Norway added no new IPTV subscribers and ended the quarter with 10,000.
• Denmark added 1,000 new IPTV subscribers, ending the quarter with 2,000.
• Lithuania added 14,000, giving it 81,000 and the end of 1Q09.
• Estonia added 9,000 new IPTV subscribers, ending the quarter with 83,000.

Telia Sonera continued to have modest growth in its IPTV service.

Telia Sonera Adds 27K IPTV Subscribers in 4Q08

Telia Sonera added 27,000 subscribers across all of its operations in 4Q08, giving it a total of 477,000 at the end of 2008. The country by country results were:

• Sweden added 4,000 new IPTV subscribers giving it a total of 324,000 at the end of the year.
• Norway added no new IPTV subscribers and ended 2008 with 10,000.
• Denmark added no new IPTV subscribers and ended 2008 with 1,000.
• Lithuania added 19,000 new IPTV subscribers and ended the year with 67,000.
• Estonia added 4,000 new IPTV subscribers and ended 2008 with 75,000.

Telia is continuing to experience slow growth in its IPTV services. Only Lithuania is showing strong growth.

Telia Sonera Adds 23K IPTV Subscribers

Telia Sonera added 23,000 IPTV subscribers across all of its operations in 3Q08, giving it a total of 450 thousand at the end of the quarter. The country by country results were:

• Sweden added no new subscribers in 3Q08 and maintained its total of 320,000 IPTV subscribers.
• Norway added 2,000 subscribers ending 3Q08 with 10,000 IPTV subscribers.
• Denmark started an IPTV service and added its first 1,000 subscribers.
• Lithuania added 13,000 subscribers ending 3Q08 with 48,000 IPTV subscribers.
• Estonia added 7,000 IPTV subscribers ending the quarter with 71,000.

Telia Sonera continues slow growth with no growth in Sweden. This consistent with the fact that it added 26,000 broadband subscribers during 3Q08 across all of its operations.

Telia Sonera Adds 20K IPTV Subscribers

Telia Sonera ended 2Q08 with 427 thousand IPTV subscribers across all of its operations, an increase of 20 thousand during the quarter. The country by country results include:

• Sweden ended the quarter with 320 thousand IPTV subscribers, an increase of 2 thousand.
• Norway ended the quarter with 8 thousand IPTV subscribers, an increase of 4 thousand.
• Lithuania ended the quarter with 35 thousand IPTV subscribers, an increase of 10 thousand.
• Estonia ended the quarter with 64 thousand IPTV subscribers, an increase of 4 thousand.

Telia Sonera's growth continues to slow, especially in Sweden. This seems to be a reflection of the fact that it added only 11 thousand new broadband subscribers across all of its operations. Clearly it is selling IPTV primarily to its existing base of broadband subscribers.

Telia Sonera at 407K IPTV Subscribers

Telia Sonera ended 1Q08 with 407 thousand IPTV subscribers. This is an increase of 29 thousand in 4Q08 and an increase of 27 thousand in 1Q08 and 286 thousand in the previous 12 months. The country by country results include:

• Sweden ended with 318 thousand IPTV subscribers in increase of 14 thousand in 1Q08 and 236 thousand in the previous 12 months.
• Norway ended with 4 thousand IPTV subscribers in increase of 2 thousand in 1Q08 and 4 thousand in the previous 12 months.
• Lithuania ended with 25 thousand IPTV subscribers in increase of 7 thousand in 1Q08 and 16 thousand in the previous 12 months.
• Estonia ended with 60 thousand IPTV subscribers in increase of 6 thousand in 1Q08 and 30 thousand in the previous 12 months.

Telia Sonera had no IPTV subscribers in Finland or Denmark.

Telia Sonera's subscriber growth slowed significantly in 1Q08, especially in Sweden. It has built up a significant subscriber base in both Lithuania and Estonia.

NAB Interview with Edgeware

I spoke at NAB with Joachim Roos, the CEO of Edgeware, a Swedish video on demand systems company. We had spoken a couple of years ago and he then outlined his plans to develop a flash memory based video on demand system. I next heard about Edgeware in January of this year when Tus Telecom in Slovenia was enthusiastic about them.

Edgeware had a significant win with Telia Sonera in Sweden. Edgeware's video on demand systems replaced Siecor equipment and now provides video on demand and catch up TV services to the more than 300 thousand IPTV customers that Telia Sonera supports.

Edgeware uses a distributed approach. Its edge servers use flash memory to store content and library servers backed up with disk storage at a central location. It records the catch up TV broadcast content at each edge node and lets it age off of the edge servers relatively quickly if it is not accessed. The library system can bring back any TV program that a viewer requests after it has aged off the edge system. Roos said that this approach has been very effective reducing the video traffic on the metro/aggregation networks. His experience is that about 95 percent of viewer requests in busy periods are satisfied by cached content on the edge servers and do not require transfers from the central libraries.

It was interesting to hear Edgeware's statements that its caching approaches are that effective in reducing network traffic. Of course, the number of Telia Sonera's IPTV customers is still a small part of its broadband base. It will be quite interesting to see how video on demand traffic on its network builds as IPTV penetration increases.

TeliaSonera to start Fiber Deployment

TeliaSonera announced that it will begin upgrading its network to both FTTP and VDSL technologies to 1.5 million households across Sweden. Supporting HD and multiple TVs in the home were cited as reasons for this upgrade.

TeliaSonera is now responding to broad fiber deployments by municipalities and utility firms. It is finally acknowledging that ADSL-2+ cannot compete with fiber.

TeliaSonera Selects Edgeware for Video On Demand

TeliaSonera has deployed Edgeware video on demand servers to support its video on demand service. Edgeware is now support 300 thousand IPTV subscribers at TeliaSonera.

TeliaSonera is using Edgeware’s Orbit 2x, which is a video server appliance with Each up to 3 TB of flash memory content storage and is capable of streaming 20 Gbps to more than
16,000 concurrent users.

Edgeware is one of the first IPTV video on demand systems to use flash memory rather than hard disks. This should make its systems more reliable by eliminating mechanical storage devices. TUS in Slovenia is also using Edgeware and told me that they were quite impressed with the small size of the device.

Telia Sonera Hits 379K IPTV Subscriptions

Telia Sonera announced that it had 379 thousand IPTV subscriptions at the end of 2007, an increase of 103 thousand during 4Q07. In Sweden the number of IPTV subsriptions grew by 88 thousand in 4Q07 to a total of 304 thousand. This compares to a growth of 98 thousand broadband subscribers in Sweden.

Telia Sonera's new strategy to include IPTV has continued to drive the number of its IPTV subscribers up significantly. However competition in its markets is driving prices down, which is putting profitability pressure on its broadband services.

Telia Sonera has 300K IPTV Subscribers in Sweden

Telia Sonera passed 300,000 IPTV subscriber mark right at the beginning of 2008. There was also a big jump in movie rentals during the Christmas and New Year’s holiday period with viewers renting 68,000 films. The company plans to add additional TV channels, a wider range of films, and increased interactivity in the Spring of 2008.

This is an increase of 84 thousand IPTV subscribers in 4Q07 compared to 58 thousand in 3Q07. Telia Sonera is also seeing significant growth in video on demand. The company should see continued growth in 2008.

TeliaSonera Launches TelcoTV in Finland

TeliaSonera launched an IPTV services in the Greater Helsinki Area on November 29, 2007. Sonera Broadband TV offers broadcast channels, video on demand, and HDTV. The service is designed for households for which Sonera’s 100 Mbps FTTH broadband is available. TeliaSonera has about 170,000 cable TV customers in Finland.

In addition to free digital terrestrial channels, Sonera Broadband TV provides eight ty channels, of which Discovery Channel, Silver, Voom and Luxe are in HD. In addition to these, Animal Planet, Discovery Civilisation, Discovery Science and Discovery Travel & Living are also available. The offering is supplemented by SF Anytime, a video on demand service with a weekly updated selection of over 1,000 videos including, Finnish movies. The basic service is free of charge for the first 12 months. A premium option is available with a movie package with a monthly charge offer of 29 euros. In addition, this package also includes the Canal+ Total channel package.

This TelcoTV service is available today to 85,000 households in the Greater Helsinki Area that are covered by its FTTH network. This network provides coverage in the 15 largest towns in Finland and should cover 150 thousand homes by the end of 2007.

An IPTV offering is an important part of an FTTH service. TeliaSonera has not aggressively deployed a DSL based IPTV service since it also offers a cable TV service. FTTH is a clear upgrade from cable technology, so including a video service is an important strategy.

TeliaSonera Reaches 276K IPTV Subscribers

At TeliaSonera the total number of IPTV subscriptions grew to more than 276 thousand, mainly due to the successful IPTV push in Sweden which increased the number of IPTV subscriptions there by 58,000 to 216,000 during 3Q07. During this period the total number of IPTV subscribers increased by 76 thousand across the entire country.

Since TeliaSonera included IPTV in its basic broadband service, the number of IPTV subscribers has grown in proportion to the growth in its broadband service. The increases in its broadband service are offsetting its losses in fixed voice subscriptions.

TeliaSonera hits 200,000 IPTV Subscribers

TeliaSonera increased the number of its IPTV subscribers to 200 thousand in 2Q07. Most of this gain came from Sweden where the number of IPTV subscribers increased by 80 thousand to a total of 160 thousand.

TeliaSonera has turned its ability to acquire IPTV subscribers around, especially in Sweden. Of course, what it had to do is to include a basic IPTV package in its broadband service, thus making it free for all intents and purposes.

I think that this is a good strategy for many countries in Europe in Asia where the uptake of Pay TV is low. The idea is to hook them with the basic channels and then upsell them with premium content. This strategy has worked very well with PCCW in Hong Kong and should translate to other countries, if it is well executed.

Telia Offers Free IPTV in Sweden

Telia, the incumbent telco in Sweden, now offers the basic channel package and the set-top box for its Digital-tv IPTV service for starting in February. This basic channel package includes 26 channels. Premium packages with 10 to 14 additional channels each are available for 169 kr (US$24) to 239 kr (US$34). Video on demand is also available.

We have heard that this offer has been quite successful and that Telia has been adding 10 thousand new IPTV subscribers per week since it introduced this service. This would bring its subscriber base somewhere around 150 thousand IPTV subscribers.

It is hard to turn down something that is free!