The number of fixed broadband subscribers continues to grow in 2011. According to ABI Research practice director Jason Blackwell, "­There were more than 539 million fixed broadband subscribers globally at the end of second quarter. That is an 8% increase from the same quarter in 2010. Customer net addition is stronger in emerging markets."

The number of customers using high bandwidth services such as Internet video and online gaming is growing around the world. Exploding IP traffic generated by these services is putting service providers under pressure to handle the bandwidth demand. Broadband operators are expanding fiber broadband coverage which can best serve these bandwidth-hungry services. As an example, China Telecom is deploying fiber optic broadband aiming to serve 100 million households and 30 million fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) subscribers by the end of 2015.

At present, North America is the region with the highest fiber optic broadband penetration followed by Asia-Pacific. Extending fiber broadband coverage not only increases speed but also allows the roll out of services including video on demand (VOD) and IPTV. ABI Research estimates that worldwide fiber broadband subscriber numbers will more than double in 2016 to 142 million subscribers, from 69.6 million in 2011.

The Asia Pacific region is seeing strong subscriber growth, due in particular to the increasing number of subscribers in China. About 17 million Chinese subscribers have been added since the second quarter of 2010."The Asia-Pacific broadband market is sure to continue growing in the medium-term since low broadband penetration in countries such as China and India leaves plenty of room for broadband growth," comments research analyst Khin Sandi Lynn.

Source: Cellular News

New data from TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Pay-TV Research service reveals that more than 40 telecos launched IPTV in 2010, bringing the number of IPTV services to more than 200. The number of IPTV subscribers globally grew 38% in 2010, reaching 45 million. Subscribers grew 9% in Q4, a slight increase from growth rates experienced in the previous three quarters.

Western Europe remains the largest IPTV market, accounting for 40% of global subscribers in 2010. The Asia Pacific region is the second largest IPTV market, accounting for 35% of subscribers. However, the number of IPTV subscribers in the Asia-Pac region is growing more than twice as rapidly as in Western Europe and will take the top slot before the end of 2011. France remains the leading country for IPTV (23% of the global total), followed by China (16%), the US (16%), South Korea (8%) and Japan (4%).

Meanwhile the number of fixed broadband internet subscribers grew by 13% in 2010 to reach over 530 million, with telcos accounting for 82% share of the total. ‘In aggregate, telcos around the world have succeeded in selling IPTV services to over 10% of their broadband internet customer base,’ said TeleGeography’s John Dinsdale. ‘With some 90% of the broadband base left to be targeted, clearly there is room for substantial IPTV growth. However, due to fierce competition from cable TV and satellite DTH services, IPTV has so far managed to gain only a 6% share of global pay-TV subscribers. We project that IPTV’s share of the pay-TV market will grow but that it is unlikely to exceed 10% within the next five years,’ he added.

Source: TeleGeography

Mexican fixed line incumbent Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex) has unveiled plans to break its fixed line voice operations apart, revealing it aims to form two separate companies, one of which will exclusively serve rural areas, the Wall Street Journal reports. Under the telco’s proposals, which will require the approval of the Secretario de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT) and other regulatory bodies, Telmex intends to create a new company, Telmex Social, to service rural regions and those areas of the country ‘in which there is no economic interest of any competitor’. The new company, Telmex said, would continue to pay the same interconnection rates to competitors as the enlarged operator currently does.

The move, it is thought, is in part aimed at countering criticism of Telmex’s dominant position in the fixed line voice sector; it currently has a market share of around 80%.

Further, it is also believed that Telmex, which is controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, hopes that the decision to split its operations will prompt the relevant regulatory bodies to allow it to offer IPTV services and triple-play bundles, which would allow it to compete directly with the country’s main cable TV operator Televisa, which already offers such packages.

Source: TeleGeography

According to a report on the first half of 2010 by the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS), the volume of mobile outgoing call minutes overtook fixed minutes for the first time in the country during the period, with cellular calls accounting for 52% of the six-month total of 21.5 billion minutes, compared to 10% a decade ago.

Furthermore, one-third, or 1.5 million, of the approximately 4.5 million broadband internet subscriptions recorded by the PTS at mid-2010, was accounted for by mobile broadband services provided by cellular network operators. Elsewhere in the report, the number of fixed telephony subscriptions continued to fall to just over five million by the end of June 2010; of these around one million were based on IP telephony (VoIP). The regulator also said that IPTV subscribers reached 429,000 by mid-2010, out of a total of five million television subscriptions in the Swedish market overall.

Source: TeleGeography

A lot of the recent limelight has been on telcos and cablecos battling each other for market share, in both the pay-TV and the telecoms markets. In the meantime, satellite direct-to-home (DTH) service providers have been quietly growing their operations and can now claim well over 150 million subscribers, with a good spread of activity across all regions. Their subscriber numbers have been growing by a steady 13%-15% per year, even through the recession.

To put these numbers into context, there are still almost five times as many DTH subscribers as there are IPTV subscribers, and over the last five years DTH operators have enjoyed subscriber growth rates that have been more than double those achieved by their cable TV competitors. As if that were not enough, globally the ARPU for DTH is more than double that achieved by cablecos and telcos. While the ARPU figures are closer in North America, in most countries there is a huge gap between ARPU for DTH and pay-TV services provided over other platforms.

‘It is interesting that while so much marketing emphasis has been placed on the importance of triple-play bundles, DTH operators have handily outperformed both telcos and cablecos while essentially selling a single service’ said TeleGeography’s John Dinsdale. ‘I don’t want to oversimplify a complex picture and I certainly don’t want to downplay the importance of bundling strategies. However, there is sometimes a strong argument that it’s better to do one thing and to do it exceptionally well. DTH will continue to increase its share of the pay-TV market over the next five years’ he added.

Source: TeleGeography

British fixed line incumbent BT Group has at last begun offering triple-play bundles incorporating fixed line voice, high speed internet and IPTV, taking advantage of telecoms regulator Ofcom’s decision in September 2009 to lift restrictions that previously prohibited such packages. To celebrate the new range of offers BT has revealed it will discount its new bundles until 23 March 2010, and commenting on the launch John Petter, managing director of BT’s Consumer Division, said: ‘Over the last twelve months, 3.6 million of our customers have moved to calls packages, where you don’t pay for every call. Offering a bundle of broadband and ‘Anytime’ calls for this knockdown price will launch us into the bundles market as an unrestricted competitor for the first time. There will be many more bundled offers to come and customers can only benefit.’ BT’s initial top-level triple play package will give customers unlimited fixed geographic calls, internet at speeds of up to 20Mbps and its Vision Gold Value IPTV service for GBP48.99 (USD74.16) per month; under the introductory offer it will reduce this cost to GBP35.99 for the first three months.

Source: TeleGeography

Algerie Telecom has launched ‘SAFIR’, the country’s first IPTV service, equipment supplier Netgem revealed. The service was rolled out across the telco’s fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network in collaboration with Netgem and the telco’s systems integration partner SPEC-COM Algerie. Netgem’s NetgemTV software and set-top boxes will allow the operator to deliver triple-play services and a choice of 60 IP-delivered TV channels. Moussa Benhamadi, CEO of Algerie Telecom, said: ‘SAFIR is a key initiative in the rollout of our FTTH network and evidence of our commitment to offer six million broadband connections by the end of 2013.’

The deployment of SAFIR has received strong backing from the Algerian government which is investing in its national telecoms infrastructure and broadband networks in an effort to accelerate economic development.

Source: TeleGeography

China’s state-backed IPTV service was launched in Beijing last week with more than 1,000 hours of programmes per day. Construction of the IPTV network started in early 2009 and cost RMB200 million (USD29.3 million), revealed the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television on its web site. Shanghai Daily says that besides the new state network there are three notable regional government-run IPTV services in China: Shanghai Media Group's Bbtv.cn, Hunan Province's Eagle Broadcasting System's Mango TV (tv.hunantv.com) and Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV's IPTV Website V.ifeng.com.

Meanwhile, in separate but related news, Broadbandtvnews.com reports that China is set to roll out its proprietary mobile TV system, China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting (CMMB), on a nationwide basis. The service will be made available to China seven largest regions first, with smaller regions to follow. Liu Tingjun, deputy general manager of CMMB operator China Satellite Mobile Broadcasting Corporation (CSMBC), stated that the country’s number of CMMB users exceeded one million last May, and by the end of 2010 the figure should grow to around ten million.

Source: TeleGeography

Venezuelan state-owned telecoms operator CANTV aims to launch pay-TV services over both IPTV and satellite technology next year, the government said in a statement, quoted by BNamericas.

CANTV has already deployed 1,666 satellite stations nationwide through which the company expects to provide new communications services to the national market and other countries across the region, via Venezuela’s own Venesat-1 satellite, company president Franco Silva said, adding that the telco has doubled its average annual investment since its renationalisation in May 2007. Meanwhile, CANTV has increased the number of fixed telephony subscribers three times over since that date, the country's science and technology minister Jesse Chacon said, whilst it offers ADSL broadband connectivity nationwide.

Source: Telegeography

German telecoms operator Deutsche Telekom (DT) has announced the launch of a new double-play package bundling its IPTV service ‘T-Home Entertain’ and fixed line telephony.

The new ‘Entertain Pur’ package is the first time DT has offered IPTV without also providing an internet connection. It is priced at EUR27.95 (USD41.7) per month, or EUR39.95 with a flat rate for domestic fixed line calls. ‘With Entertain Pur we offer telephone and TV from a single source, reaching new user groups for our Entertain service,’ noted Christian P. Illek, T-Home board member, adding, ‘Customers who are not interested in internet services do not have to miss out on the innovative possibilities of Entertain any longer.’ The package includes over 120 TV channels, as well as access to an online video store, TV archive, time-shift function and HD content. At 30 September 2009 the company recorded a total of 678,000 IPTV subscribers, up from 333,000 a year earlier.

Source: Telegeography

Maroc Telecom and the Moroccan government have signed a MAD10.5 billion (USD1.3 billion) investment agreement under which the former monopoly telco will expand and upgrade its infrastructure, focusing on three key areas. Firstly, domestic network traffic capacity will be increased through the rollout of next generation network (NGN) technology, which will also facilitate the development of convergent triple- and quad-play fixed line/broadband internet/IPTV/mobile services. The second objective is to raise international transmission capacity via the Atlas Offshore submarine cable linking the country with Europe, alongside the construction of a new terrestrial fibre-optic cable between Laayoune in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara and Nouakchott, the capital of neighbouring Mauritania, which will also improve connectivity in the Western Saharan areas of Boujdour, Dakhla and Aousserd. The third tranche of investment funds will be channelled into enhancing mobile and fixed-wireless network coverage in rural and remote areas of Morocco as part of an ongoing scheme known as PACT (Programme of general Access to Telecommunications). An additional 7,300 rural locations are scheduled to receive network services by 2011. The latest investment package is the third in a series of public/private agreements; Maroc Telecom invested over MAD20 billion in the six-year period 2003-08 under the previous two agreements.

Source: TeleGeography.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has announced that it has signed up over 10,000 customers to its IPTV service, Mozaic TV+, after extending coverage of the service to around 80% of the population. Quoted in a report from Gulf Times, a Qtel spokesperson said that Mozaic TV+ was now accessible up to 3km from either a Qtel ADSL exchange or a remote line unit (RLU). Around 170 RLUs have been rolled out to date, and the telco is adding 20 RLUs per year, whilst working to improve service quality, with the aim of giving the whole of Qatar access to IPTV in the next few years, continued the spokesperson. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, Mozaic TV+ was launched in May 2007, providing broadcast and on-demand IPTV, DSL/Wi-Fi broadband internet access and fixed voice telephony over the same copper line.

Source: TeleGeography.

Hungarian internet service provider (ISP) EnterNet has launched an IPTV service, Broadband TV News reports. The new offering is initially available in three different flavours – Start, Home and Premium – comprising 24, 49 and 64 channels respectively. Subscribers can also take advantage of a range of additional packages, some of which include HD channels. EnterNet was set up at the turn of the millennium and is reported to have around 50,000 subscribers to its existing services.

Source: TeleGeography.