Video over ASDL in Europe................................
inside-cable.co.uk
21st September 1998
TELEKOM'S REVEALS A SUB-TEXT TO ITS CABLE SALE
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Deutsche Telekom is planning to compete aggressively with the cable operations it currently owns, once the majority interests are sold.
Telekom, which has stood out against European Union and government requirements to part with its cable television interests, gave in, it claimed in a briefing, because it was increasingly convinced that cable is no longer needed to provide high-end multimedia services.
It expects video on demand, pay-per-view and interactive services to grow and to be more widely available from a variety of platforms - one of which is the copper telephone network. As it became convinced that ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) could deliver these services it drew back from opposition to selling off its cable interests.
Telekom operates one of the longest running ADSL pilots reaching over 450 businesses and homes in Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Dortmund. It plans to roll out ADSL to 70,000 homes and businesses in eight German cities by the end of next year and to offer the service nationwide by the end of 2003. The service is seen as a logical upgrade for residential ISDN subscribers.
Broadcast TV distribution over ADSL is more problematical but Deutsche Telekom sees demand driven TV services as more profitable than subscription channel carriage. Deutsche Telekom's board has approved the plans to spin off the cable TV operations into a separate company from January and to complete a structural separation by the end of 1999.
The present plan is to break up the cable network into six regional companies and to attract investors to take stakes in these new companies, offering majority stakes if that is required. Telekom has also said that it may even sell out entirely in some areas. There are 20 million cable subscribers in Germany, Telekom has direct contracts with 5.6 million while the remainder are served by three larger operators plus a host of smaller local companies. Recent market speculation has centred around Microsoft entering the huge German market as a cable partner.
These decisions have made it clear that, like BT, Deutsche Telekom will compete by offering audio-visual services and high speed Internet access using its copper access network
inside-cable.co.uk
21st September 1998
BT's ADSL PLANS BECOME CLEARER
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British Telecom is planning a commercial launch for asymmetrical digital subscriber line (ADSL) early next year following on from its current extended trials in West London.. The first exposure will be a business service in the first quarter of 1999, followed by a residential service later in the year.
The first areas to be launched will be London and Birmingham - the most developed areas for cable in the UK. BT's ADSL will offer high speed Internet, LAN interconnect and, for residential customers, video-on-demand and other interactive consumer services. ADSL terminates in a small premises unit and although settop boxes can be produced to handle TV signals they will probably be relatively costly in the first instance and it is likely that the first subscribers will be PC users seeking high speed Internet access rather than the video services.
Digital services from CWC, Telewest and NTL should roll-out in the first half of next year and will offer substantially faster data transfer speeds than ADSL. Digital TV will also be offered but they will, however, be limited to cabled areas while BT's ADSL will be capable of a national roll-out.
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