French telecom operator Neuf Cegetel has denied press reports that it has acquired Deutsche Telekom’s Club Internet France. Les Echos said Monday morning Neuf would buy the ISP, which also offers IPTV, for a figure between €430 and €460 million, but Neuf Cegetel was quick to deny any such deal existed.
Deutsche Telekom wants to sell the French subsidiary which made a loss of €200 million during 2006. The ISP counts 600,000 connected homes. Free/Ilyad, another French telecom operator, was reported to have offered between €380 and €400 million, but dropped out of the race when Neuf apparantly increased its bid.
Last year Neuf Cegetel bought AOL France bringing the total number of subscribers to 2.17 million. Should the operator acquire Club Internet France it would surpass Free, which has 2.28 million customers.
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Connected TV Forecasts NEW REPORT. The number of TV sets connected to the Internet will reach 551 million by 2016 for the 40 countries covered in this report from Digital TV Research, up from 124 million at end-2010. The report states that this translates to 20% of global TV sets by 2016, up from only 6% at end-2010. Published in November 2011, this 83-page PDF report is the most geographically comprehensive to ever be published.