Golden Telecom and its Corbina Telecom subsidiary are building a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) (or FTTB for “building” in the case of multi-tenant buildings) network called Triple-65 that they expect to reach 11.6 million homes in 24 cities in Russia by the end of 2007. Corbina Telecom is already operating an IPTV service in Moscow and expects to roll it out in 20 other Russian markets by mid-2008. It offers 100 TV channels plus additional services such as VoD and DVR.
Golden Telecom and Corbina Telecom added 65,000 broadband subscribers in Moscow in the three months ending September 2007, bringing its total in that city to 299,600. Nationally the two companies added 86,000 in the third quarter to bring their total to 383,400. During the first three quarters of 2007, the two added 243,400.
The companies plan to rollout their fiber network in 65 cities of Russia with a total population of 65 million people, offering a triple-play bundle that consists of broadband, wireline residential phone and pay-TV to approximately 65% of the countries households that are high-rise apartment blocks. That’s the basis of the Triple-65 brand the companies are using.
Regarding the IPTV rollout, Jean-Pierre Vandromme, CEO of Golden Telecom, said, “We have already doubled what we originally planned. We have been able to accelerate the rollout of the FTTH network and are currently at least a year ahead of our FTTH project original schedule by capturing 50% of the total incremental subsidiaries in Moscow, where we are the fastest growing company in terms of broadband subscribers.”
The IPTV technology that’s being used is based on a Microsoft platform.
“The infrastructure of our broadband network in Russia, where the overall broadband penetration is only 9%, is at the beginning stage of its development and far behind similar projects in developed countries,” said Alexander Malis, general director of Corbina Telecom. “Our fiber-to-the building project is the biggest in Europe and by 2010 we will be able to eliminate the gap in the use of up-to-date technologies and bring Russia to the leading position among the most developed broadband markets in the world.” Malis expects 25% to 30% of its fiber optic broadband subscribers to take IPTV, too.
In the targeted areas there are approximately 100 apartments per building with 2.8 people per household on average. Thus the total networks will enable access to approximately 15.6 million households with 42.3 million people, which would make it the largest broadband network in Russia.
Golden Telecom acquired Corbina Telecom in May.