Telefonica bids for Spanish pay-TV market
October 5, 2007
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Spain’s dominant telco Telefonica is making a full-frontal assault on the pay-TV market in the last quarter of the year. The company is launching an enhanced version of its IPTV service Imagenio, with the addition of new channels -planning to reach 200 by year end-, including a HDTV service, new added-value services and a higher Internet broadband access speed.
Amongst the new interactive services is Past TV that allows viewers to view programmes screened up to seven days ago on La Primera, La 2, Tele 5 and Cuatro. Telefonica is also launching ADSL of up to 10 Mbps to residential clients, so far limited to businesses. The offer, within its double (Internet and telephony) or triple play packages, will be available from November, covering 54 per cent of the population, at a price of E 44.9 for the double package and E48.9 per month for the triple play package. The company plans to extend its coverage to 85 per cent of Spaniards in 2010.
The operator is also extending its fibre-optic networks at speeds of more than 30 Mbps. To this end, Telefonica is carrying out pilots in 1,000 homes in Madrid and Barcelona. Currently, Telefonica’s IPTV service Imagenio has more than 450,000 subscribers.
In July, Telefonica and Sogecable reached an agreement to jointly launch a triple play offer from November, called Trio Plus, and to jointly negotiate contracts with TV content providers.