Romtelecom launches IPTV

The Romanian incumbent telco Romtelecom has finally launched its long-awaited IPTV service. Known as Dolce Interactiv, it is initially being made available in 10 cities and will be optimized and calibrated over the next few months, adding new features and becoming available to a larger base.

The end-to-end system has been installed by Ericsson.

Dolce Interactiv can be received with broadband connection of 8 Mbps or above, and customers are being offered a 100% subscription discount until the end of March 2010 and the first set-top box without a hard disk for free.

Additional boxes will cost from €99 excluding VAT, while those with hard disks, required to access the services’ functionalities, will be offered at a 50% discounted price of €99.5, excluding VAT.

Dolce Interactiv includes a content-on-demand element. The 10 cities it is initially being offered in are Bucharest, Iasi, Constanta, Timisoara, Bacau, Cluj Napoca, Piatra Neamt, Sibiu, Ploiesti and Braila.

Romtelecom already operates a highly successful DTH platform named Dolce. Launched three years ago, it currently has around 850,000 subscribers.