Deutsche Telekom's fixed/broadband division, T-Home, is to cut its monthly charge for IPTV package, Entertain, by 17% to make it more appealing to consumers, according to T-Home's CEO Timotheus Hoettges during a CeBIT press conference.
The current Entertain Comfort package will cost €49.95 (instead of €59.95) per month including 16Mbps DSL, 70 IPTV channels, video on-demand, free calls to German fixed networks and a digital set-top box with hard disc recorder.
Two new packages will be available from April - the Entertain Comfort Plus package, which will cost €59.95 per month, and the Entertain Premium at €69.95 per month. Both packages will be available from the middle of April.
The Entertain service will also be expanded with a programming service that can be used via every internet-enable device and transferring photos and music from PC to TV will also be added during this year as well as the option of ordering a second digital set-top box so that customers can watch T-Home's IPTV service on a second TV anywhere in the home.
As yesterday's analysis by Ovum of Fastweb [PLEASE INSERT URL HERE, FM], the Italian service provider owned by Swisscom, demonstrated, IPTV potentially has a serious role to play in stabilising ARPU, driving growth and improving customer retention.
Currently, VDSL is available in 27 German cities and ADSL2+ in 750. Deutsche Telekom's is to roll out VDSL in another 13 cities this year and to deploy ADSL2+ to a total of roughly 1,000 cities