Microsoft IPTV makes its way to France
By Paul Miller 
posted June 12th 2006 1:10PM
posted June 12th 2006 1:10PM
Europe seems next on this list for Microsoft's slow and steady rollout of IPTV, which got under way in the States around the beginning of this year. Switzerland got an early glimpse of the service in 2005, with Swisscom and Microsoft running some early tests, but their planned rollout stalled when Swisscom decided Microsoft's offering was a bit half-baked. To kick things off, Germany's Deutsche Telekom is busting out the service via their Club Internet service in France, offering HDTV, dual show watching simultaneously, and 50 hour DVR capability. Existing Club Internet customers can sign up at the end of the month, and new customers can nab the service in August. Deutsche Telekom hopes to bring the same offering to Germany sometime this summer, and Britain's BT Group is planning on Microsoft IPTV later this year. We'll have to wait and see how this Microsoft-flavored tech will fare against traditional TV offerings in Europe, especially now that HDTV is getting underway in England and elsewhere, but it could all come down to price -- which is as of yet unannounced.
i love a good rant about france. and i especially love to gab about wanadoo (now Orange) and their wonderful technology. I have had IPTV through wanadoo/orange/france telecom for about a year. as far as i know, most internet companies, and tv providers (Canal+) offer iptv...that is television over dsl. heh..TVoE...is that a better abbreviation?
"dual show watching simultaneously" - that means I can watch two shows at once? great.. one for each eye.
Great. Actually Club Internet is probably the last entrant (OK, there's Tele2) in that market (TV over whatever it is that brings fast IP to residential customers' premises).
EVERYONE else has been doing digital TV-over-DSL. For YEARS. Everyone pretty much copies Free these days, although Neuf/Cegetel is a little less "me too" and a little more genuinely innovative these days.
Standard features today in the French market: boundless IP (to the limits of ADSL 2+ so far -- sucks compared to downtown Seoul or Tokyo, but that's where we're at) [yes it's typically reasonably overcommitted]; free landline (not metered except to really remote international locations, and to local mobiles); lots of TV channels (basically same SD signal as DVB-T when possible, a few HDTV channels now starting), a bunch free and some by subscription (more advanced providers, like Free, let you watch on both TV and over your LAN using vlc. You can also stream content from your computer to the TV if you like. Yep, HDMI outputs now. Got enough bandwith? Yep, multiple channels if you want. Last but not least, providers are massively turning the "boxes" into hotspots ANY of their subcribers can use for the purpose of placing and receiving SIP phone calls. At the same cost (none) as the landline. Last development is that Orange and Free contemplate a free cross-provider roaming agreement. Basically let your subscribers handle your blanket deployment, everyone wins.
Oh and the price? typically 30€/month, some manage to make a living charging 45€/month for all that stuff. Charge more and you're dead. Let's see what kind of pricing the CI/MS venture yields (but yeah, for sure, Club Internet is kinda desperate these days).
Club Internet is indeed late in the triple-player game in France and Free is the best in-town DSL provider. But MS IPTV technology is way above that any of the other operators. Particularly, it has the best user interface of all. Free TV GUI is shit on TV, and even more complex on PCs through the VLC software. There's no integrated recording tool, even though their new set-top-box incorporates a tiny 20 Go disk drive. MS IPTV has an EPG that is based on the Windows MCE user interface and it rocks.
So, Club Internet could be in a good position to attract a new generation of DSL TV viewers who are very sensitive to ease of use. I wouldn't count them out based only on their offering. What could damage their ability to grow market share is their poor visibility, brand value and existing market share. Microsoft's endorsement won't help much unless they put a lot of marketing bucks in demand generation.