Telecoms: Italy » TV

Interactive media center by Telecom Italia

Cazzani — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:21:31 +0000

Branded CuboVision, Telecom Italia started today selling its brand new multimedia box that integrates a digital TV receiver and an HD multimedia player including 500 Gbyte of storage.

The box has an attractive ‘cube‘ design and it is being sold at a retail price of €199.The box has been co-designed by Telecom Italia and it includes severeal interesting features:

DVT-T based terrestrial TV reception. Italy is currently migrating to analog TV broadcasts to digital TV. In some part of the country analog TV has already been switched off. The transition will be completed nation-wide by 2012.
Internet gateway. The box connects to Internet through either the integrated Ethernet or ir WI-FI interfaces.
Storage. 500 Mbyte for storing multimedia contente
Smart features. The box can be fully personalized by the user, for instance overimposing several ‘widgets‘ to display any Internet content like latest news, YouTube videos and so on.

A quick summary of the technical specifications of CuboVision are available in (easy to read) Italian.

750,000 IPTV subscribers by end of 2009

Cazzani — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:52:42 +0000

According to the Italian IPTV industry trade group, by the end of 2009 there will be about 750,000 subscribers to IPTV services, currently offered by Telecom Italia, Fastweb and Wind.

IPTV penetration: missed targets

Cazzani — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:37:46 +0000

During today’s Analyst & Investor Briefing, Telecom Italia confirmed the lower than expected take-up of its IPTV service Rosso Alice.

At the end of 2007, Telecom Italia signed-up just 80.000 customers instead of the expected 200.000.
However, Telecom Italia is confident to reach 300.000 IPTV customers by the end of 2008.

DVB-SH mobile TV trial in Turin

Cazzani — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:59:27 +0000

Alcatel-Lucent, the mobile operator 3 Italia and Italian public broadcaster RAI are launching the first trial of Mobile TV based on the DVB-SH standard in Italy.

The trial, based on Alcatel-Lucent’s Unlimited Mobile TV solution, uses for the first time in the world a multi-layer DVB-SH terrestrial network blending low-power transmitters from a mobile operator and medium-power transmitters from a broadcaster.
The first phase of this trial will take place in Torino from December 2007 to March 2008. It will consist in a technology trial to validate the capability of DVB-SH to make available a large number of high-quality mobile TV channels, in various usage conditions
Cellular sites provided by 3 Italia will allow the indoor coverage of Torino’s downtown, while broadcast towers provided by RAI and Raiway will allow outdoor and vehicular coverage of the entire town of Torino.

Tiscali to launch IPTV service

Cazzani — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 06:48:09 +0000

Tiscali confirmed it is planning to launch an IPTV service in Italy next quarter.

The company already operate a similar service in the UK market using the HomeChoice brand.

National broadcaster RAI selects Cisco’s set top box technology

Cazzani — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 15:41:12 +0000

Italian State owned broadcaster RAI said it is co-operating with Cisco to design a new mixed-mode DVT-T and IPTV set top box.

RAI also announced it will use Cisco’s CRS-1 Carrier Routing Systems to develop its IPTV services.