SES Americom IP-Prime fails
December 16, 2008
SES Americom will cease providing its IP-Prime service, which provides a complete IPTV programming transport solution to North American telcos, by July 31st 2009, due to “slow adoption” of IPTV in the region as well as the “difficult market outlook” for the service.
IP-Prime offers a range of programming in standard- and high-definition for North American telcos wishing to offer IPTV services without investing in their own costly headends, and counts AT&T among its customers in the region.
“In line with its plan, IP-Prime has contracted IPTV signal delivery agreements with 70 small telecom operators, of which 37 have so far reached commercial stage,” said Rob Bednarek, President and CEO of SES Americom. “However, with a subscriber base of less than ten thousand at the end of November and after more than 2 years of service, the consumer uptake is insufficient to justify continuing operations.”