IPTV Comes To Life In Europe

Telecom & Wireless

Published: August 29, 2007 5:00 am

Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) take note. The telecom companies in Europe are well ahead of the game in putting internet TV over their wires.

According to The New York Times, Deutsche Telekom (DT) has wired 40% of German households for internet TV. As The New York Times reports: “IPTV’s decisive advantage is its ability to link programming with interactive services,” said Timotheus Höttges of DT.

Today, France is in the lead in IPTV adoption in Europe" because the country lacked dominant satellite and cable broadcasters."

The big US telephone companies should take note, but it may be too late. Verizon is spending $23 billion on fiber to set up broadband and television service, but the company only has about one million subscribers. AT&T has fewer.

The cable companies see the phone folks coming after their business, but, unlike in Europe, large deployments of telecom IPTV in the US are a long way off.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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