This has been an eventful week for the cable TV industry in Poland.
It began with the news that UPC Polska has been chosen as the first operator to introduce Liberty Global’s new 4K Mini TV Box and ended with Vectra revealing plans for an upcoming IP-based “elastic platform”.
The 4K Mini TV Box has been described by Liberty as its “greenest-ever set-top box” and is powered by the next generation TV platform Horizon 4. The fact that it has been launched in Poland ahead of the company’s other markets perhaps reveals the importance Liberty now places on the country, only one of two territories it still operates in in Central and Eastern Europe.
Liberty also sees the box as the “perfect TV companion” to UPC Polska’s FTTH product, which launched earlier this month.
Meanwhile Vectra, which following its acquisition of Multimedia Polska earlier this year is now Poland’s leading cable operator in subscriber terms, continues its innovation drive. Proud of the fact that it was the first operator in the country to introduce 4K services on its two platforms (online and digital TV) back in February 2019, it has announced that Insight TV will join its line-up of 4K channels at the beginning of September, bringing the total to four.
More importantly, it has provided insights into its soon-to-be-launched “elastic platform”, which it says will offer the best features of digital TV, online TV and Android TV multimedia devices. It has been tested by customers in Poznan, Lublin and the tri-city of Gdansk and Vectra is currently collecting their feedback before providing further details about the platform.
These are clearly interesting times for cable in Poland, with UPC Polska having also just added more 4K channels to its offer and at the same time being told by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) to change its sales practices.
The pace of change in the industry is likely to pick up in the coming months.
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