France Telecom is adding a new bundle of thirty general and thematic channels on its broadband television service MaLigne TV, to be called Le Bouquet TV. The company also plans to pilot a fibre to the home service.
Provision of the thirty channels will be managed by France Telecom subsidiary GlobeCast from its technical operations centre in Paris. A total of seven channels will be devoted to the Torino Winter Olympic Games.
The bundle or ‘bouquet’ of channels will be provided as MPEG-4 streams to broadband subscribers. Two mosaic index screens to provide viewers with an overview of all channels simultaneously.
The MaLigne IPTV service, which launched in December 2003, now has over 200,000 subscribers, an increase of over 80,000 in six months.
MaLigne TV currently offers 200 channels, including premium channels in conjunction with TPS and Canal+, as well as video-on-demand services.
France Telecom has also announced plans for a fibre to the home service covering thousands of households in the Paris region. This will enable high-definition services to multiple devices in the home.
The pilot will be launched before the summer of 2006, after which France Telecom plans to ramp up to cover other regions in France by 2007.