Ziggo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Netherlands, UtrechtZiggo is the largest cable television company, Internet service provider and Digital TV provider in the Netherlands.[2] The company is the result of the merger between Multikabel, @Home, and Casema and launched officially on May 16, 2008.
Contents
[edit] History
Private equity firms Cinven and Warburg Pincus[3] bought the three companies. In 2000 Multikabel was bought by Cinven; until then, the company had been mostly government-owned. In 2005 the company was sold again to Warburg Pincus.
[edit] Cable television
- See also: List of Ziggo channels
Ziggo offers analog and digital cable television to 3.3 million subscribers of which more than 1.000,000 watch digital.[3] Basic service is called "Televisie Z1" and consists of about 30 television and 60 radio channels, digitally the basic service offers the same radio and television plus some additional channels. It consists of all the major Dutch networks and some of the main networks of neighbouring countries. In recent years the number of analogue channels has been reduced to make more bandwidth available for digital HD channels. Digital viewers can subscribe to a number of additional packages under the name "Televisie Z2". Every package comes with Music Choice and XLnt Radio which offer 35 additional radio channels. See the list of Ziggo channels for a detailed description of the packages and channels.
[edit] High-definition
Ziggo offers nine HD channels, five are part of the HDTV package and include Discovery HD and NGC HD. Two come with the subscriptions of premium film and sport services Film1 and Sport1. The rest are part of basic service.
In the first quarter of 2009 the Dutch public broadcaster NPO will start simulcasting Nederland 1, Nederland 2, and Nederland 3 in HD (720p). Most of the programming in the early stages will consists of upscaled versions of their parent channels as in time more programs will become available in HD. Nederland 1 HD will become temporarily available from June 1 until August, 2008 to bring Euro 2008 and the 2008 Summer Olympics in HD, the rest of the time will be an upscaled version of its parent channel.[4] The public HD channels will be part of basic service.
[edit] Technology
The digital television signal uses the DVB-C standard. Most SD channels are encoded in MPEG-2 and most HD channels in MPEG-4 AVC. All channels are encrypted with Irdeto and require an activated smart card to be decrypted. Costumers must buy a certified set-top box or IDTV with embedded Irdeto CA, which are sold by Ziggo and consumer electronic retailers. Ziggo doesn't support devices with a Common Interface by offering a CA-module but has plans to support CI+ in the future.
[edit] Broadband Internet
Ziggo offers broadband Internet access to 1.2 million subscribers in the following subscription forms:
Speeds up to 30 Mbit/s will be available at the end of this year and with the introduction of EuroDOCSIS 3.0 next year speeds will go up to 100 Mbit/s.[5]
Subscription forms will get a speed increase on 1-12-2008:
[edit] Telephony
Ziggo has 750.000 subscribers to their telephone services.
