Belgian operator Mobistar has announced that it reached 10,000 subscribers to its hybrid Mobistar TV service at the end of 2010, just under three months after its October 8, 2010, launch.
Mobistar, a subsidiary of France Telecom, launched the Belgian version of its Livebox concept combining satellite (via DVB-S), digital terrestrial (DVB-T) and IPTV television signals. Satellite offers HD quality (Full HD 1080) and brings over 500 television and radio channels. The broadband connections gives customers access to interactive services (EPG), content on demand (VOD) and “thanks to Mobistar TV’s intelligent platform”, customers can watch, record and manage their favourite programmes both on their television or mobile devices.
For the satellite portion of the offer, delivered from Astra at 19 degrees East, Mobistar is working together with the two Belgian DTH platforms from the M7 Group, TV Vlaanderen and TéléSat. The telecom operator uses Viaccess PC4.0 encryption.
The DVB-T services in Belgium are limted to a multiplex each for Flanders and Walloon. According to a spokesperson for the company Mobistar hopes to reach 50,000 subsribers to its TV service by the end of 2011. Until now, the Belgian TV martket is dived between the two majopr cable operators, VOO in Walloon and Telenet in Flanders with a few independent operators incuding Numerticable, and IPTV provider Belgacom TV. Satellite only remains a niche product with over 100,000 homes connected to the two services from the M7 Group.
