Tiscali

Telecom Italia IPTV numbers growing

Dan O'Shea — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:01:07 -0400

When someone talks about IPTV growth in Italy, he or she is usually talking about FastWeb, the Italian service provider that has offered TV services for about six years. But these days, the IPTV player in Italy starting more conversations might be Telecom Italia. The incumbent telco has been going through restructuring, but its IPTV offering has become increasingly popular. Telecom Italia reported that it added 80,000 IPTV customers during the first half of 2008, giving it a total of 180,000 subscribers.

Telecom Italia's goal is 300,000 subscribers by the end of this year, and while it is on pace to reach fewer--260,000--it is getting close to catching FastWeb. Light Reading reports that FastWeb, which is now owned by Swisscom, is believed to have around 230,000 IPTV subscribers, though FastWeb currently is not separating IPTV adds from its overall broadband numbers. Tiscali and Wind Telecommunications are the other two IPTV upstarts making the Italian market interesting right now.

For more:
- check out this coverage at Light Reading Europe

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ALSO NOTED: DT adds 38,000 IPTV customers; Orange hits 1.41 million subs; and much more...

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:58:20 -0400

> German telco Deutsche Telekom reported that it signed up 38,000 new IPTV subscribers during the first quarter. Article

> France Telecom's Orange said its surpassed 1.41 million IPTV customers during the first quarter, with about 1.28 million of them in France. Article

> Italian carrier Tiscali is expanding is IPTV offering to six more markets. Article

O2 greenlights U.K. IPTV plans

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:59:30 -0500

After a successful rollout of IPTV services in the Czech Republic, O2 said it plans to launch a similar offering in the UK next year. O2 launched an IPTV service for Czech users last September and has since attracted some 70,000 subscribers. Some analysts chalk up O2's success in that country to its rights to broadcast ice hockey games. As we've noted in recent weeks, the UK market has been a difficult one for new video service providers.

As recently as May, Virgin promised to be on air next year in its ambitious triple play to cover the spots in the U.K. where cable wasn't, but now the company put those plans off until at least 2009. BT recently announced it had 60,000 customers for its video product--a long way short of its promised hundreds of thousand by the end of 2007 and nowhere near the two- to three-million customers BT hope to have in the medium term. France Telecom's Orange network has also gone very shy as of late about its very public plan to have a TV service in the U.K. by Christmas. Finally, the metrics for Tiscali's Homechoice aren't stellar either: customer numbers have fallen 10,000 to a modest 30,000 over the last year.

For more on O2's designs for the UK market:
- read this article from The Register

Related articles:
U.K. disappoints on IPTV front Report
Tiscali take IPTV across U.K. Report

U.K. disappoints on IPTV front

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:59:20 -0500

Over in the mother country it seems everyone is struggling to get their IPTV numbers. As recently as May Virgin promised to be on air next year in its ambitious triple play to cover the spots in the U.K. where cable wasn't. This week it has all been put off till at least 2009 with broadband now the "hero" product for Richard Branson's latest attempt to upset the competitive landscape.

As the incumbent, BT announced it had 60,000 customers for its video product--a long way short of its promised hundreds of thousand by the end of 2007 and nowhere near the two- to three-million customers BT hope to have in the medium term.

Another mooted player, France Telecom's Orange network has also gone very shy about its very public plan to have a TV service in the U.K. by Christmas. And at Tiscali's Homechoice, customer numbers have fallen 10,000 to a modest 30,000 over the last year.

More reports:
- Virgin scales back TV ambitions Report
- BT misses its targets Report
- Missing, presumed tardy: Orange IPTV Report

Related articles:
- Now showing: French VoIP revolution Report
- European IPTV market to double by 2009 Report

Tiscali takes IPTV across U.K.

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 06:59:40 -0400

Tiscali's broadband operation in the United Kingdom is taking its IPTV offering out of town. Tiscali TV, launched last March in London, will now be offered across the rest of the United Kingdom, with a goal of having 500,000 subscribers by year's end, and to be available to 10 million homes.

The basic service will initially be offered free to existing broadband subscribers with connections of at least 2 Mbps. Tiscali, based in Calgliari, Italy, with divisions throughout Europe, is reported to have around 1.5 million broadband subscribers in Great Britain.

In an unrelated item, the folks at London media research firm, Screen Digest, say that IPTV is growing more slowly in the United Kingdom than in the rest of Western Europe. "There is currently only one nationally available IPTV service in the U.K.-BT Vision…," it notes. Tiscali clearly had that figured out.

For More:
- Tiscali's announcement is posted on IPTV News here
- The report summary from Screen Digest is here

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