Tiscali to launch IPTV in March

Tiscali said this week that it will launch its own IPTV service in the UK on March 1, following its acquisition of Homechoice last summer.

Tiscali TV will be made available as part of a broadband package for £14.99 per month.

At the switch on, the 40,000 or so Homechoice subscribers will become Tiscali TV customers and will immediately have access to the offer.

Tiscali TV is currently available in London and Stevenage but will be available in Birmingham, Edinburgh and Newcastle during April and May, and in areas of Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool by mid-year.

By the end of 2007 Tiscali TV will be available to a footprint of over 10 million UK homes and the TV service will be available to Tiscali’s entire unbundled local loop network by the end of 2008.

The Tiscali TV pack offers over 30 digital TV channels and a replay service allowing subscribers to watch over 50 hours of key BBC programmes up to seven days after they have been broadcast, as well as on demand programming with prices ranging from £1.99 to £3.49 per movie.

For £19.99 customers can get a triple play package, consisting of 2Mb broadband, the TV pack, line rental and free weekend telephone calls.

A set top box will be made available in July, featuring a 160Gb, Hi-Definition enabled, personal video recorder (PVR).

Ovum analyst, Michael Philpott, notes that Tiscali’s offering represents the first 100 per cent IPTV offering to be launched on a national scale in the UK.

“With Homechoice’s experience of the TV market, if Tiscali can get the vastly important marketing and customer service elements right, the service offering and pricing should certainly compete well with the likes of BT, which launched its BT Vision service in late 2006, and other broadband ISPs that are expected to enter the triple-play market in 2007,” said Philpott.