Fastweb dismisses reports of Italian IPTV organisation

July 1, 2008 - Media reports that Italy's four main IPTV operators have joined together to form an IPTV organisation and co-bid for content broadcasting rights have been denied to ipTV News by Fastweb, one of the operators concerned.

A spokesperson for the company affirmed yesterday that Fastweb executives had recently met with representatives from Telecom Italia, Wind and Tiscali to "put their heads together and discuss policy making, regulatory issues and big themes like that", but stated that the telcos have not formed an IPTV organisation nor agreed to co-bid for content rights, and added that the talks were very much preliminary.

Fastweb has not divulged subscriber numbers for its "ONtv" IPTV service, but recently reported that the figure increased 77% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period of 2007; meanwhile Telecom Italia closed the first quarter of this year with 136,000 subscribers for its Alice Home TV service and is aiming for 300,000 by year-end.  Tiscali has not released subscriber figures for its own service but recently increased coverage to nine cities in the country; finally Wind launched its "Infostrada TV" service at the end of last year and is also currently reticent regarding subscriber numbers.