Nokia Siemens Networks and Belgacom Strengthen Partnership

Things must have worked out great for Nokia Siemens Networks and Belgacom up to this point, as they have just strengthen their partnership with an IPTV contract extension. As a result, the two companies will be working together for three more years.

Belgacom is Belgium's leading telecommunications operator and also receives high-definition television through IP-based broadband lines from Nokia Siemens Networks. The IPTV contract extension follows a strong and lasting partnership that begun in 2004 and gathered up to this point almost 200,000 subscribers. This result proved to surpass at a great extent the expectations of the two companies, which also gives reason to their decision of continuing to work together.

The contract extension shows that Belgacom wants to reinforce the partnership between them and Nokia Siemens Networks by expanding its planned services to include high-definition interactive television. As a result, they will also receive set-top boxes for high-definition TV into their network. Moreover, Nokia Siemens Networks will also handle software maintenance services.

"Thanks to the new technical evolutions, we will further expand our Belgacom TV service, both in terms of services offered and customers reached. Our upgraded network and the set-top boxes delivered by Nokia Siemens Networks will allow us to offer full triple play services, including multiple IPTV channels on multiple TV sets simultaneously and High Definition Television (HDTV) to about two thirds of the Belgian households in the year to come", said Scott Alcott, Executive Vice President of Belgacom's Service Delivery Engine.

Nokia Siemens Networks will deliver the first high-definition set-top boxes starting with November 2007 and integrate them throughout Belgacom's IPTV network. With the new high-definition TV set-top boxes, the Belgacom TV community will be able to benefit from television services in the first half of 2008, a pretty close term.