Germany's Arcor has commenced the wide-scale market introduction of its IPTV package. Arcor is a Vodafone subsidiary. Arcor-Digital TV is now available in 51 cities and towns.
The ADSL-based service includes more than 50 TV channels in the basic package along with more than 60 pay channels.
The basic package is available for EUR 9.95 per month. Premium bouquets with sport, entertainment and foreign channels can be subscribed to for an extra fee of between EUR 5.95 and EUR 22.95 per month.
There is also on demand library of more than 500 films, series, documentaries, music concerts, children’s programmes and erotic films available from EUR 1.49 per title. Also included is an electronic programme guide. The service provides a time-shift restart function which allows viewers to restart a program from the beginning. The function is currently offered by Yavido Clips, BBC World and Bloomberg TV, with further broadcasters expected to follow.
The IPTV compatible set-top-box, which connects the television set with the ADSL line, costs EUR 49.95 plus EUR 9.95 postage. An additional one-off set-up fee of EUR 49.95 is also required.
Arcor-Digital TV is marketed as a triple play offering in connection with Internet access and a telephone line. An ADSL connection with a data rate of at least 6 Mbit/s is a prerequisite. The Internet and telephone package with this capacity currently costs EUR 34.95 per month including flat rates for telephony and Internet.
The IPTV service was first introduced in May as a test run in Kassel near Frankfurt.
IPTV is becoming a required element of a broadband service in Germany, as it as become in France.
Showing posts with label Vodafone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vodafone. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
FastWeb Shifting Gears
FastWeb reported its 2006 earnings yesterday. Its presentation reflected its transformation from a consumer oriented company to an enterprise oriented company that has been enabled by the completion of its network expansion. The details of its fourth quarter 2006 results are available at http://company.fastweb.it/index.php?sid=53.
FastWeb added 105 thousand subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2006, giving it a total of 1.062 million. Its ARPU per residential customer was €797 per year, which is about €100 less than 2005. The ARPU from video subscribers was €296 per year in the fourth quarter, which is about €20 less than 2005. The decreases are generally the result of the introduction of lower cost offerings.
FastWeb stated that the number of broadband connections in Italy grew from 6.8 million to 8.4 million in 2006. FastWeb's share grew from 11 to 13 percent and the share of the other competitive providers grew from 5 to 7 percent. Telecom Italia's share shrunk to 67 from 71 percent.
FastWeb will implement its agreement with Sky in Italy in April that will permit FastWeb to offer all of the Sky TV channels over its broadband network. It will also permit Sky to offer FastWeb broadband services. The FastWeb and Sky services will be billed separately. FastWeb will provide an integrated decoder that supports both FastWeb and Sky video content.
In the second half of 2007, Fastweb will offer a new self installed home networking capapbility for both the residential and the SOHO markets. It will use Ruckus Wireless MIMO WiFi technology that has been optimized for video traffic.
FastWeb is also working on a mobile component so that it can expand its triple play strategy to a quadruple play strategy. Its MVNO agreement with Vodafone is on hold while Vodafone waits for rulings on local number portability. FastWeb has declared that it will take an alternative path if the Vodafone deal falls through that could include acquisition or the deployment of its own mobile network.
FastWeb is also seriously considering deploying WiMAX to extend its reach to 90 percent of the market. It has successfully completed trials expects to launch using wholesale services depending on resolution of spectrum issues in 2007. It also plans to deploy WiMAX into areas without broadband coverage today in 2008 and 2009.
While FastWeb is putting strong emphasis on its new enterprise offerings, it remains quite serious about the residential market. It expects 45 percent of its revenue to come from this market in the long term.
Its IPTV strategy is based on offering a profitable as opposed to a market entry service. It is keeping its prices up and formed an alliance with Sky to support this strategy. Its primary competition is a strong free to air digital terrestrial service today.
We expect that FastWeb's strategy will continue to produce strong results. Telecom Italia is clearly a strong competitor that plans to deploy VDSL. As long as FastWeb can get competitive wholesale access to this new VDSL service from Telecom Italia, it should do well.
FastWeb added 105 thousand subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2006, giving it a total of 1.062 million. Its ARPU per residential customer was €797 per year, which is about €100 less than 2005. The ARPU from video subscribers was €296 per year in the fourth quarter, which is about €20 less than 2005. The decreases are generally the result of the introduction of lower cost offerings.
FastWeb stated that the number of broadband connections in Italy grew from 6.8 million to 8.4 million in 2006. FastWeb's share grew from 11 to 13 percent and the share of the other competitive providers grew from 5 to 7 percent. Telecom Italia's share shrunk to 67 from 71 percent.
FastWeb will implement its agreement with Sky in Italy in April that will permit FastWeb to offer all of the Sky TV channels over its broadband network. It will also permit Sky to offer FastWeb broadband services. The FastWeb and Sky services will be billed separately. FastWeb will provide an integrated decoder that supports both FastWeb and Sky video content.
In the second half of 2007, Fastweb will offer a new self installed home networking capapbility for both the residential and the SOHO markets. It will use Ruckus Wireless MIMO WiFi technology that has been optimized for video traffic.
FastWeb is also working on a mobile component so that it can expand its triple play strategy to a quadruple play strategy. Its MVNO agreement with Vodafone is on hold while Vodafone waits for rulings on local number portability. FastWeb has declared that it will take an alternative path if the Vodafone deal falls through that could include acquisition or the deployment of its own mobile network.
FastWeb is also seriously considering deploying WiMAX to extend its reach to 90 percent of the market. It has successfully completed trials expects to launch using wholesale services depending on resolution of spectrum issues in 2007. It also plans to deploy WiMAX into areas without broadband coverage today in 2008 and 2009.
While FastWeb is putting strong emphasis on its new enterprise offerings, it remains quite serious about the residential market. It expects 45 percent of its revenue to come from this market in the long term.
Its IPTV strategy is based on offering a profitable as opposed to a market entry service. It is keeping its prices up and formed an alliance with Sky to support this strategy. Its primary competition is a strong free to air digital terrestrial service today.
We expect that FastWeb's strategy will continue to produce strong results. Telecom Italia is clearly a strong competitor that plans to deploy VDSL. As long as FastWeb can get competitive wholesale access to this new VDSL service from Telecom Italia, it should do well.
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