Telenet (Belgium)

Telenet Group is the largest provider of cable broadband services in Belgium. Its business comprises the provision of analog and digital cable television, fixed and mobile telephone services, primarily to residential customers in Flanders and Brussels. In addition, Telenet offers services to business customers all across Belgium and in Luxembourg under its brand Telenet Solutions.

Telenet Group N.V.
TypeNaamloze vennootschap
Euronext: TNET
BEL 20 component
IndustryTelecommunications
Founded1996
HeadquartersMechelen, Belgium
Key people
John Porter (CEO), Bert De Graeve (Chairman)
ProductsCable television
Broadband Internet
Fixed telephony
Mobile telephony
Revenue€2.429 billion (2016)[1]
€485 million (2016)[1]
€42 million (2016)[1]
Total assets€5.007 billion (2016)[1]
Total equity€1.207 billion (2016)[1]
OwnerLiberty Global
Number of employees
3,387 (FTE, end 2016)[1]
Websitewww.telenet.be

Since 11 October 2005, Telenet has been listed on the Euronext stock exchange under the ticker TNET.

Internet

Telenet has offered its residential service since 1997 under the brand name Telenet Internet through the combination of its broadband cable network, which passes some 2.4 million homes in Flanders and a part of the Brussels region. All of the networks through which Telenet offers residential services in Flanders have been upgraded to a two way digital hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) standard, and Telenet has direct relationships with all of its Internet and telephony customers.

Its main competitors on the cable broadband Internet market are Numericable and VOO in the Brussels region, and Proximus, the leader of the Belgian DSL market in the Flanders and Brussels regions.

Telenet also offers voice, data and Internet services to its business customers under the brand name Telenet Solutions through its optical fiber backbone, by its acquisition of Codenet, which covers all of Belgium and Luxembourg.

Through its acquisition of Sinfilo, Telenet acquired a large network of Wi-Fi hotspots in addition to its cable Internet service.

In December 2016, Telenet submitted a proposal for the acquisition of SFR Belux from Altice, which has been authorized June 20th 2017.

Hosting services

In January 2008, Telenet acquired Hostbasket, Belgium's largest hosting company, to offer services appropriate for organisations and companies. Hostbasket offers "classic hosting" (domain names, shared webhosting, online backup, antivirus), infrastructure (dedicated servers, co-location) and applications (hosted Exchange, hosted SharePoint, hosted CRM).

Telephony

Fixed telephony

Since 1998, Telenet has offered fixed telephony using its cable network under the brand name Telenet Freephone. In 2008, it has more than 600,000 customers.[2] Its main competitors on the Belgian fixed telephone market are Numericable and VOO in Brussels, using optic fibre. Its other main competitor is Proximus, leader of the Belgian DSL market.

It has released FreePhone Mobile in November 2011. This is a free option which allows its customers to call all mobile lines for free during the morning and evenings. An extra option called FreePhone Mobile 24 is available as well. This allows customers to call mobile lines all day.

Mobile telephony

Since July 2006, Telenet Mobile offers mobile telephony services as a full MVNO, using the Mobistar MNO-network (now Orange Belgium). Today it has more than 80,000 customers. It competes with the mobile network operators Proximus, owned by the Belgian state owned telecommunications company Proximus Group.

In 2009, Telenet acquired the Belgian retail store network of BelCompany from the Dutch Macintosh Retail Group.

In 2011 Telenet and Voo formed a new company, Telenet Tecteo BidCo, to participate in the auction for obtaining the fourth 3G license on the Belgian market. As there were no other bidding parties they obtained this license for €71.5 million.

In 2015 Telenet acquired the mobile operator Base from its previous owner KPN for €1.325 billion.

Television

Cable television

Telenet launched Telenet Digital TV interactive television on its cable television network on 3 September, 2005.

Since 2012-2013 cable customers need not pay an extra subscription to receive digital TV, but they must purchase or rent a set-top box in order to view the digital TV channels and to use the interactive services based on the Multimedia Home Platform.

Telenet also rolled out high definition television services during 2008.

In July 2008 Telenet reached an agreement with Interkabel's INDI regarding the acquisition of its 800,000 cable TV customers.

Its main competitors on the Belgian digital television market (DVB-C) are Numericable and VOO in the Brussels region. Other competitors are Proximus TV IPTV and TV Vlaanderen Digitaal (DVB-S/DVB-T2), owned by Proximus and an Airbridge Investments -Providence Equity Partners consortium, in the Flanders and Brussels regions.

Telenet and North American digital media & broadcasting company Vice Media both launched a local version of US TV channel Viceland (itself owned by Vice) in Belgium on 2 March 2017.

Set-top boxes

The Digibox (standard high definition set-top box) and Digicorder (high definition personal video recorder) are made by Advanced Digital Broadcast.

Pay TV

Telenet also offers several premium TV channel packs including:

  • Play (including premium channels, Stingray Music and a timeshifting service)
  • Play More (including PRIME and other premium channels)
  • Play Sports (Also available as Pay-per-view)
  • BeTV
  • Ciné+ (Brussels Only and Flanders with 3 channels)
  • Option FR (Flanders Only)
  • Passion XL

Digital Terrestrial Television: Teletenne

On 21 June 2012, Telenet launched its pay TV digital terrestrial television based on DVB-T technology, called Teletenne. The service has been closed down in 2014 due to low success.[3]

Ownership

Liberty Global own a 57.8% stake in Telenet.

Sponsorship

Telenet is the principal sponsor of the Belgian football club KV Mechelen and a secondary sponsor of Club Brugge, another Belgian football club, and the Belgian Fidea Cycling Team. Both football clubs are active in the Belgian Pro League. Telenet is a title sponsor of the Telenet UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup from the 2016–2017 season.[4]

References
  1. "Annual Report 2016". Telenet Group. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  2. "Telenet persberichten". Telenet Group.
  3. Cludts, Dries (17 February 2014). "Telenet stopt met Teletenne, digitale tv via de ether". ZDNet. Retrieved 11 April 2016.
  4. ""The Telenet UCI Cyclo-Cross World Cup perfectly meets the aim of our new sports broadcasting strategy"". Union Cycliste Internationale. 15 September 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.