France Telecom

App Opp is Apple's and Orange's

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 09:44:41 -0500

France Telecom's Orange reportedly is interested in developing an iTunes like application store for content that could be played on a variety of devices, including TVs, personal computers and mobile devices. If you are an iPod or iPhone user, you can get TV content and other video content from the iTunes online store that will play on your handheld devices or on your PC, but so far, household TVs and set-top boxes have mostly been left out of the equation. And while IPTV service providers have started to express an interested in content sharing and the leveraging of online video sources, their retail sales philosophies have not yet wandered beyond their own direct marketing, brick-and-mortar stores, or partnerships with big-box retailers.

Orange's idea, reported at Telecoms.com, sounds like a pretty ambitious one-to create an open applications store, a distinctly un-Apple concept. The carrier will be holding a partner camp next week at Cape Canaveral in Florida, at which it will give further shape to the idea. It could be a huge, long-range project, taking up to two years to create and even longer to solidify in the minds of potential customers.

It's a project that most U.S. IPTV players would not want to pursue at this point because their IPTV acceptance, while strong, has not yet matured. Also, while a big telco like AT&T recently has made strides to portray itself as a convergent service provider, service convergence is a concept still in its infancy in the U.S. Orange doesn't have those weaknesses, being part of a company with both a mature, multi-country TV offering and an established fixed-mobile converged service strategy.

Still, that doesn't guarantee Orange's success in this endeavor. Apple has yet to conquer the TV world the way it has the world of walled-garden content for its own multimedia players, but neither have traditional telecom players, despite their ability to support massive customer bases, taken much of a bite out of Apple's core strength.

-Dan

For more:
- Telecoms.com has the full report

DT sees 3Q IPTV subscriber jump

Dan O'Shea — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:06:35 -0500

Germany's Deutsche Telekom is not often mentioned among Europe's IPTV leaders, but the telco reported a 33 percent jump in IPTV orders during the third quarter, and now has about 333,000 customer orders total for its Entertain IPTV service. About 257,000 customers actually had service activated at the end of the third quarter. DT is aiming to get 500,000 customers signed up by the end of this year.

For a telco that experienced delays launching the service in 2006 and fell behind competitor HanseNet, DT's IPTV efforts have definitely picked up steam. Still, to put DT's IPTV numbers in perspective, France Telecom's Orange has about 1.5 million TV customers in France and about 1.7 million TV customers total in Europe.

For more:
- Light Reading has this story

Global IPTV subscriber round-up

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:33:36 -0500

Following our earlier posts on third quarter TV subscriber additions from AT&T, Verizon Communications, Chunghwa Telecom and others, here are the third quarter figures for several more carriers around the globe:

China Telecom added more than 550,000 IPTV subs since May and now has more than 1.5 million total.

France Telecom added 70,000 IPTV customers in France, about 211,000 pay TV users overall in Europe, and now has 1.74 million TV subscribers overall.

TeliaSonera added 23,000 IPTV customers to give it 450,000 subscribers in Scandinavia.

Poland's TPSA added 3,000 IPTV subscribers, giving it more than 57,000 total.

United Arab Emirates firm du reported it has passed 50,000 IPTV subscribers.

These numbers were reported by IPTV News and in third quarter earnings reports. More numbers specific to other international and U.S. carriers will be available later this week.

Kangaroo has BT, others hopping mad

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:15:44 -0400

U.K. telco giant BT became the latest company to express its concern over Kangaroo, the video-on-demand joint venture created by the BBC Worldwide, ITV and the U.K.'s Channel 4. What raised the ire of BT and several video service providers and broadcasters was Kangaroo's initial plan to hold exclusive rights to content commissioned by its shareholding firms, which critics claim would give the new company too much control over the developing video-on-demand market.

Kangaroo pulled back on those plans, and The Financial Times reported that Kangaroo, "is now likely to allow other online services to show catch-up TV, the most popular shows for on-demand viewing," and would retain syndication rights for 30 days after transmission. However, critics want assurances all content will be priced and available on a fair basis.

BT, according to C21 Media.net, fears that Kangaroo will adversely affect competition. The telco is in an especially vulnerable position because, with 280,000 customers, its IPTV service is still somewhat small. Also, BT already is facing a growing competitive threat from the likes of France Telecom's Orange and O2, which is planning to grow a TV customer base in the U.K. market.

For more:
- see this coverage at The Financial Times
- read this report at C21 Media.net

Orange finally set for U.K. TV launch

Dan O'Shea — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:54:43 -0400

France's Orange reportedly is just about set to finally unveil its IPTV service in the U.K., more than a year after the launch was first expected. About four months ago, the France Telecom unit said that it was still committed to entering the U.K. market this year, blaming regulatory hurdles for the delay. Since then, it seems to have taken its time testing the service. It will now be entering an even more mature TV market, which, according to IPTV Watch, is led by experienced firms like Sky and Virgin and is also being pursued by new IPTV players like BT and upcoming entrants such as O2.

For more:
- see this report at IPTV Watch

Related articles:
O2 said late last year it will enter the U.K. market. O2 report
Orange said in April it would be in the U.K. this year. Orange report

Euro telcos post IPTV sub increases

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:46:38 -0400

European telcos France Telecom and Spain's Telefonica, two of the world's largest and most influential IPTV carriers, continued to post strong subscriber additions to their IPTV services during the second quarter of 2008. France Telecom added 107,000 customers during the quarter, 76 percent higher than the same period last year, and now has about 1.54 million IPTV customers throughout France, Spain and Poland. The company is still targeting an eventual TV launch in the U.K. France Telecom competitor Free did not discuss its own IPTV numbers, but did say last week that it had added 93,000 ADSL customers (it counts TV as one of several value-added services it delivers over ADSL).

Telefonica reported a 22 percent increase in IPTV customers over last year, and addition of 22,513, to bring its total IPTV customer base to 576,558 (about 27,000 more than U.S. IPTV player AT&T). Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, BT added about 50,000 users to its live video streaming service in the U.K., bringing its total to about 300,000. BT has pledged a fiber-to-the-home deployment in some parts of the U.K., which will support expansion of TV and other services at a time when competitor France Telecom is readying its competitive invasion.

Worth noting is that both France Telecom and Telefonica appear to be experiencing a slowing in their IPTV additions, at least if the progress from the first quarter of this year to the second quarter is to be believed.

For more:
- read this report at Light Reading

Related articles:
France Telecom and Telefonica made our recent list of IPTV Players Worth Watching
Telefonica added 43,000 IPTV subscribers in the first quarter. Telefonica report

The real battle for the living room

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:42:17 -0400

Telcos and cable TV providers are tussling over who will own the TV/video pipeline into consumer living rooms, and it is fun to watch them one-up one another as they pile on the HDTV channels and make promises about what is to come next. But, the real battle for the living room is about to happen on the software front.

Microsoft recently announced the beta version of its Mediaroom Presentation Framework, with all kinds of new goodies for IPTV service providers. However, the Soft At Home consortium led by France Telecom also is looking to work its way into consumer living rooms possibly to challenge Microsoft, and how video content is organized, presented and managed for IPTV services.

Soft At Home was announced a few months ago, but there has not been much detail since (The group's website consists of about three pages).

Next week at NXTcomm, I will be meeting with executives from both Soft At Home and Microsoft Mediaroom (not simultaneously, though that might be fun). Look to FierceIPTV next week for more detailed reports on their distinct approaches, as well as other show news.

-Dan