Deutsche Telekom will use the Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform for its IPTV rollout. The agreement is Microsoft’s largest IPTV contract in Europe to date and its second-largest worldwide. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Deutsche Telekom’s IPTV service will run over its new VDSL2 network, which is expected to deliver up to 50 Mbps and is planned for launch starting mid-2006 in 10 major German cities including Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich.
Microsoft said the Deutsche Telekom deal, together with Telecom Italia’s recent selection of Microsoft TV IPTV Edition, signifies growing acceptance for its IPTV platform by the world’s largest telcos . This brings Microsoft TV to 13 publicly announced broadband service provider customers worldwide using IPTV Edition, of which ten are committed to commercial deployments. Those 10 are AT&T, BT, Deutsche Telekom, Swisscom, T-Online France, TDC, Telecom Italia, Telkom South Africa, Verizon and Ya.com. Another three customers — Bell South, Bell Canada and Reliance Infocomm — are in trials.
Microsoft said it expects AT&T, BT, Swisscom and others will extend their commercial rollout of IPTV to numerous markets, and that other customers will introduce their first commercial IPTV services based on Microsoft TV IPTV Edition this year.
http://www.microsoft.com
