Telefonia Bonairiano Launches IPTV Under the Name of 'MITV' as A First in the Caribbean Region

KRALENDIJK, Bonaire, Netherlands — “MITV” is the new Digital TV service developed by Telbo N.V., Savant Communications N.V. and Manycast Consultancy Inc. and is considered to be the showcase model for the Telbo partner telecom companies, covering an additional 24 countries.

Telefonia Bonairiano (“Telbo”) launches IPTV under the name of “mitv” to its residential and business subscribers. Telbo became the first in the Caribbean and Central America to establish a triple play (video, voice and data) offering.

Bonairean telecom operator Telefonia Bonairiano NV has launched its Digital TV over ADSL 2+ network enabling residential and business customers to fully benefit from the triple play offering. Besides around 110 live quality channels the offering will also include 50 Audio Channels, Pay-Per-View and Video-on-Demand.

“mitv” is the new Digital TV service developed by Telbo N.V. , Savant Communications N.V. and Manycast Consultancy Inc. and is considered to be the showcase model for the Telbo partner telecom companies, covering an additional 24 countries. Further rollouts in these territories are expected early 2008.

“mitv” Offering

Telbo is offering a Basic Package consisting of around 40 channels with channels from HBO, Discovery, FOX. As a first in the Dutch Caribbean it will offer the Dutch Public Channels (Nederland 1, 2 and 3) which will be inserted into the headend via optical submarine cables. Telbo also offers an Extended Basic Package and packages serving specific customer needs such as an International Package, Sports Package, Action Package including some for the region unique Adult content offered on PPV and VoD and 3 premium movie oriented packages.

“mitv” is a significant milestone for the region, our partners and of course Telefonia Bonairiano. We are proud of our employees and our partners at Savant Communications and Manycast Consultancy who established the service within a timeframe usually too tight for a project like this”, said Edsel Winklaar, Managing Director of Telbo.

“Building on an all-IP metro Ethernet infrastructure from Extreme Networks and an ADSL2+ access network the project team was able to implement, integrate and launch IPTV services in record time. This type of project usually has an implementation cycle of 18 months; the project team was able to deliver a commercial product in less than 9 months. Our respective partners for the satellite head-end, middleware, conditional access systems and content aggregation played an important role in the integration of this innovative service”, said Majid El-Hoss, technical architect/overall project manager and partner of Savant Communications NV.

“We are delighted to be part of this project in the Caribbean after similar projects in Europe. It certainly shows the potential of the Caribbean as a region that is developing rapidly in the digital world. We are excited to further build on expanding the service for Telbo and their partners on another 24 territories, starting soon with a Hospitality service. Our focus is on further strengthening our position as market leader for content aggregation and -strategies in the Caribbean and South/Central America”, commented Jorris Uding, Managing Director of Manycast Consultancy Inc.