French broadband service provider Iliad is engaging in exclusive negotiations to acquire Telecom Italia's French network business, Liberty Surf Group SAS, aslo known as Alice France, for about $1.3 billion. Telecom Italia's is in the midst of a restructuring and recovery process, so the negtiations do not come as much of a surprise, though TI reportedly had been looking to sell for a while and had drawn interest from a number of parties.
The acquisition would give Iliad, which operates the Freebox TV service in the tightly-competitive French market, a larger base of new potential TV customers. Iliad currently is considered the third-ranked broadband service provider in France behind France Telecom and Neuf Cegetel.
For more:
- read this story [1] at Light Reading
Related articles:
IPTV players worth watching IPTV report [2]
Telecom Italia also is facing more IPTV competition back home. Telecom Italia report [3]
Links:
[1] http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=155859
[2] http://www.fierceiptv.com/story/special-report-iptv-players-worth-watching/2008-05-26
[3] http://www.fierceiptv.com/story/italy-gets-third-iptv-player/2007-11-20