|
France Telecom and Telefonica keen to exploit their powerful mobile brands across multiple services
The quad-play has nearly arrived and some of Europe’s major Telcos are ready to exploit their powerful consumer brands, stemming from the mobile telecoms world, to cross-sell mobile, fixed broadband and IPTV services. France Telecom is unifying its French and UK broadband, mobile phone and television (yet to be launched in the UK) services under the Orange brand, for example, while Telefonica is also exploiting the consumer power of O2, which it bought earlier this year, for non-mobile services. The addition of mobile services to the classic tripleplay is a boost for incumbent Telcos and their ability to offer mobile TV further extends the scope for value-add services in bundles that, at the very least, reduce churn. In the UK, new pay-monthly Orange mobile customers (talk plans above £30 {EUR43}) will be offered a free (up to) 8Mbps broadband package and clearly the more broadband customers it attracts, the more potential IPTV subscribers it has a billing relationship with. In France, mobile telephones are left out of the package but fixed line telephony, broadband and basic digital TV are now available in an all-inclusive bundle. Elsewhere, the O2 brand is being adopted for both mobile and fixed line residential services provided by Cesky Telecom in the Czech Republic, which is majority owned by Telefonica. The company is also changing its name to Telefonica O2 Czech Republic and Michal Taborsky, IPTV programme director at the company, reveals: “The strategy is to be a provider of fixed and mobile converged services and we think that IPTV is the key service in the portfolio.” O2 has also bought the UK ADSL2+ broadband provider Be. |
Features 
