German IPTV provider T-Entertain from Deutsche Telekom’s T Home division has reached half a million subscribers on December 31, 2008, according to fixed networks CEO Timotheus Höttges in the Focus weekly.
For 2009, the incumbent telecom operator intends on doubling the figure to one million connected homes in order to become an important player on the TV distribution market in the country. Höttges confirmed that the operator is active in the market to stop fixed line customers from defecting to competing infrastructures such as cable.
The potential reach of the IPTV service is 19.2 million homes. Customers need at least the possibility to access the 16 Mbps speed of the operator.
By reaching 500,000 subscribers, the operator is now on its road to becoming a major player. So far only in France IPTV has been a success in terms of numbers of subscribers; Belgacom TV in Belgium is also a successful deployer of IPTV.