A day after announcing a stellar subscription spike, chello broadband n.v. Thursday set up its
first outpost beyond Europe, adding new services in Australia.
chello broadband Australia Pty Ltd.
will offer multimedia and e-commerce services on high-speed broadband Net
access. Australian broadband company and chello partner AUSTAR United
Communications previously initiated commercial access trials, and chello
intends to bring full access services to Australia and by the middle of the
year. New Zealand services, introduced in conjunction with Saturn
Communications Ltd., are expected to roll out in the same time frame.
The Dutch broadband player, an operating company of United Pan-Europe
Communications (UPC), yesterday announced a 397 percent increase in its subscription
rate from January of last year. The company said it has 121,000 paid
accounts for 1999.
chello will also introduce a satellite platform in Australia, which the
company says is an indication of its technological flexibility. Satellite
services will also expand the targeted market to include Australia’s
significant rural population.
“The rollout of chello’s broadband internet services will give Australians
in regional and rural households access to a rich variety of local, national
and international content and shopping. That means, for the first time, they
will have the opportunity to enjoy the real power of the next generation of
internet services well before most of the major cities,” said John Porter,
AUSTAR’s chief executive officer.
“People in regional Australia are
extremely internet aware but until now have not had the opportunity to
benefit from the kind of broadband service offered by chello.”
Both the Australian and New Zealand residential subscriber portals will
contain local content. The New Zealand services will be delivered over
cable.
chello operates in the Netherlands, France, Austria, Belgium, Norway, and Sweden. While it holds an office in London, chello has yet to announce services for the U.K.
The European services are available at a fixed monthly fee and are delivered
through AORTA, chello’s pan-European IP backbone. The company also made a
deal with GTS in November which is expected to substantially increase its
capacity.