Telekom Austria Group to extend
multimedia business in CEE to Satellite with Eutelsat
14 September 2013
Telekom Austria Group announced
with Eutelsat its entry into a new business field of Satellite TV. The
announcement was made at a joint press conference at the International
Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam. The solution involves a new B2B
Direct-to-Home platform uplinking TV signals via Telekom Austria’s earth
station in Aflenz/Styria to the EUTELSAT16A satellite at the 16° East
position for broadcasting to Central and Eastern Europe as well as wider
regions of Western Europe. The term DTH (Direct To Home) stands for the
reception of TV signals via an antenna installed at the home of the
customers. DTH as a reception technology can be used for Pay TV as well as
for free-to-air channels.
Satellite TV as the next step to
convergence
In 2007, the Telekom Austria Group introduced its
first convergent offers to the Austrian market comprising fixed line, mobile
and broadband. Since then, different product combinations such as A1 TV, the
IPTV offer of the Group, have been successfully commercialised. Following
acquisitions concluded in Bulgaria in 2010 and Croatia in 2011, convergent
product bundles have been launched in both countries. The existing TV offers
based on IPTV and cable can now be extended by satellite technology, taking
convergence to a new level.
“The
Telekom Austria Group has a long international tradition and expertise as
provider of satellite services. 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”, explained Reinhard Zuba,
Group Chief Marketing Officer of the Telekom Austria Group.
For example, A1, the Austrian subsidiary of the Group
was responsible for the worldwide distribution of TV signals during the
European Football Championship UEFA EURO 2008 and was also a subcontractor
of the Skiing World Championship in Schladming, Austria, earlier this year.
The technical basis for the distribution of TV signals and data is the
Group’s high-performance backbone in Central and Eastern Europe (as well as
in Western Europe via the partnership with KPN) and the Aflenz/Styria earth
station which is embedded into its infrastructure. The Aflenz earth station
hosts more than 50 antennas, uplinking signals to satellites for
broadcasting to target regions.
