Biggest indie telco makes IPTV move

CenturyTel and Mountain Telephone and announced IPTV moves in the last week. Mountain Telephone, a 17,000-member co-op in West Liberty, Ky., is laying a fiber ring to prepare for an IPTV offering based on a Fujitsu platform. CenturyTel, based in Monroe, La., said it would be launching IPTV this month in the Columbia, Mo., market after announcing a $750 million stock repurchase.

Telecompetitor reports that CenturyTel would be the biggest indie telco to launch IPTV. (The article is no longer on the site.) At 2Q, the ILEC reported having 2.2 million access lines and 500,000 broadband subscribers.

CenturtyTel's move into TV bridges a gap between the behemoths--AT&T and Verizon--and the 100 or so smaller telcos doing IPTV. It could very well signal that the bugs in IP set-tops and middleware have been sufficiently worked out

For More:
- The Columbia Tribune carries the CenturyTel news here

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