Telekom Austria Group has joined forces with Eutelsat to offer a new direct-to-home (DTH) platform for satellite pay-TV to broadcasters and telecoms operators as a wholesale service, the companies announced during a joint press conference at IBC.
The Austrian operator is therefore targeting satellite TV as a new B2B business area, building on its existing TV offers based on IPTV and cable, and will focus on markets in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). A further element will be to develop the group’s convergence strategy throughout its own footprint in CEE.
“The Telekom Austria Group has a long international tradition and expertise as provider of satellite services,” said Reinhard Zuba, group chief marketing officer of the Telekom Austria Group. “We are active as a TV provider for IPTV as well as cable. In order to leverage further potential, we are combining the available infrastructure and in-house know-how built up in the fields of satellite and TV content to a new business field.”
Under the terms of the deal, the new B2B direct2home platform will uplink TV signals via Telekom Austria’s earth station in Aflenz/Styria to the EUTELSAT16A satellite at the 16-deg East position for broadcasting to Central and Eastern Europe as well as wider regions of Western Europe.
Telekom Austria has selected its Croatian subsidiary Vipnet to showcase the new B2B service initially, and said Mobiltel in Bulgaria could be next in line, although a final decision has not yet been made. Zuba noted that the addition of satellite services to Vipnet’s offering would enable the operator to extend its TV coverage to 100% of the market.
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