At Faultline we have long endorsed the idea that the triple play may not be quite what it seems, and that the quadruple play may be even more ephemeral, which is why we have consistently talked up hybrids.
While IPTV and cable occupy this lovely dream world, where three or more services can be delivered over a single core infrastructure to a home, it is far easier, and a lot cheaper to build services working over existing infrastructure. For quadruple play networks which take in the mobile dimension, it is already inevitable that two networks are needed to bring both fixed and mobile services into a single play.
So it comes as no surprise that Canal+, the Vivendi pay TV subsidiary which offers TV in virtually every format ‘ cable, ADSL, satellite and DVB-T- has teamed up with Telecom Italia’s French Alice Box hybrid IPTV service, to lay down a France wide footprint for a triple play.
Both companies are up against the French incumbent Orange with its Unik (unique) fixed and cellular telephony service, alongside its France Telecom MaLigne TV.
Unik came out in September in France, Netherlands, UK, Spain and Poland and relies on a UMA dual mode handset, a single telephone, with one single phone number and address book, which will work around the home through a wi-fi connection to a broadband line, and thereafter by VoIP, and on the move using cellular, and through Livebox wi-fi access points.
Announcements from the Alice web site say that VoIP telephony from Alice and its DVB-T/VoD hybrid will be available alongside whichever Canal+ service is best delivered in any given area in France.
It is a small step to integrate SFR mobile or the SFR based Cegetel dual mode telephony service. SFR is owned jointly by Vodafone and Canal+ parent Vivendi, to make this a quadruple play with a single price point.
That would mean the combination of a DVB-T network, a cellular network, VoIP over ADSL, along with IPTV, satellite TV and in some cases Cable. That’s quite a hybrid, but guess what? No-one has to build anything they didn’t already have.
Watch this space. Aggressive quad play services with a zero cost footprint could cement customers across Europe, leaving the more aggressive companies that spend $billions on network build out purely for IPTV or cable, with heavy debt loads during a period of radical service price erosion.
The introductory Canal+ AliceBox service will cost just €39.95 ($53) a month and deliver either ADSL Alice’s IPTV or Canalsat plus Alicephone telephony plus internet access.
A new DVR set top is being offered plus a VoD service that will shortly be up to 4000 titles.