ATT Introduces Interactive Fantasy Football on IPTV

ATT announced the launch of Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football on AT&T U-verse TV. Viewers can use the interactive AT&T U-bar to track their fantasy football team and receive customized information on their favorite NFL teams on their U-verse IPTV service.

AT&T U-bar is an interactive feature available to U-verse TV customers that allows viewers to receive customized sports, weather, stock and traffic information on their TV. Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football is one of several U-bar enhancements now available to U-verse TV customers at no extra charge.

Fantasy football enthusiasts can also purchase StatTracker®, a real-time application that tracks player, team and league statistics, for $9.99. StatTracker delivers snap-by-snap updates to users via AT&T U-bar, personal computers and mobile devices.

AT&T is taking advantage of its IP network to differentiate its IPTV service from its cable competitors. Sports is important to many viewers and is a good place to start these services.

Deutsche Telekom Has 200K IPTV Subscribers

Deutsche Telekom announced that it has 200 thousand subsubscribers using its IPTV service with 250 thousand signed up at the end of 2Q08. This is an increase of 46 thousand in the quarter.

Deutsche Telekom growth in the first half has been rather modest. It will have to significantly pick up the pace if it is going to meet its goal of having 500 thousand subscribers at the end of 2008.

Cablevision Wins NPVR Ruling

Lightreading published an article about Cablevision winning an appeals court ruling that supports its NPVR service. The ruling allows Cablevisiion to offer its NPVR service that was blocked by a law suit by major U.S. TV networks and film studios. Cablevision has not announced any plans to restart the service.

This ruling is subject to an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. NPVR is a key feature for the cable and Telco IPTV services in the U.S. NPVR is needed to bring the personalization that viewers get from the Internet to the TV. It will also have a profound effect on the networks that support IPTV services.

Olympic IPTV Boom in Shanghai

Due to its replay function that provides access to programs aired in the past 48 hours, subsciptions to IPTV, are booming in Shanghai ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games. China Telecom has received about 3,000 IPTV subscriptions every day, the most in its history.

The number of IPTV users in Shanghai has reached 510 thousand and is expected to hit 800 thousand by the end of 2008. BestTV, the IPTV unit of Shanghai Media Group, said it would promote a new service during the Olympics that enable viewers to watch different sporting events on different windows on one screen.

Shanghai Media Group provides two HDTV programs that are being viewed by more than 20,000 users. About 300 thousand Shanghai broadband users can receive this HD service,''

The company is facing the problem that the installation of wiring to support IPTV can sometimes damage the interior of people's.

This is another example of how sports content can significantly increase the subscription of IPTV services. It is interesting to see that HD has started to penetrate in Shanghai.

Free Adds 93K IPTV Subscribers in 2Q08 (Corrected)

Free, the competitive carrier in France, added 93 thousand new broadband subscribers in 2Q08, giving it 3.134 million at the end of 2Q08. It had 2.614 millionunbundled subscribers at the end of the quarter. Its penetration of unbundled subscribers increased to 83.4 percent at the end of 2Q08 compared to 81.5 percent at the end of 2007.

During the second quarter Free added the following to its service:

• 802.11n support to its Feebox HD set-top box
• Pre-release of Canal+'s catch up TV service
• M6 HD and France 2 HD
• Promotion that provided a one year subscription to the Canal+ Le Bouquet premium package for 1 euro per month

Free has closed its debt financing syndication that will enable it to acquire Telecom Italia's Alice France broadband operation. This acquisition should increase the number of its IPTV subscribers by another 80 thousand.

I estimated that virtually all of Free's unbundled subscribers are capable of receiving its IPTV service. This gives it a total of 2.6 million IPTV capable subscribers.

I found that I confunsed end of 2007 figures with 1Q08 figures in the original post.

BSNL in India to Delay IPTV

BSNL, the state run telco in India, will delay its IPTV launch for a year in Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. Recent rulings now enable it to establish agreements directly with the major content providers in the country. It has had poor response to the trial that it has been running with IOL in Bangalore. IOL aggregated content on its own. It is now acquiring its own IPTV infrastructure equipment.

The IPTV situation in India is still rather clouded. The fundamental problem there, though, is the lack of broadband infrastructure. IPTV will not do well there until broadband services are broadly available.

Telekom Austria at 50K IPTV Subscribers

Telekom Austria now has 50 thousand IPTV subscribers, this is up 11.4 thousand from the end of 1Q08.

The company is running a summer promotion that provides the aonTV basic package free for the first six months. Subsequently, there will be a charge of 4.90 euros monthly in addition to the broadband line starting at 15.98 euros per month. During this promotion the first set-top box costs 29.90euros .

The basic package has 65 TV channels. For 7.90euros per month the Premium TV package offers an additional 21 entertaining channels such as National Geographic, Disney Channels, E!Entertainment and kabel eins classics. For The aonTV video on demand library has up to 300 films. Films in HD quality, time-delayed and ORF information programs that can also be viewed on demand.

Telekom saw a bit of a slow down in 2Q08, but its summer promotion should help it get through the summer doldrums.