chello To Extend Broadband Delivery to Multiple Platforms

Broadband Internet supplier
chello broadband nv
announced Friday that it will expand its delivery of services to multiple
platforms
including DSL, wireless and Direct To Home (DTH) technology.

Currently, chello delivers its services over cable in Europe and by
satellite
in Australia. The move to other platforms will entail extensive development
and testing, already in progress at the company’s Broadband Laboratory in
Amsterdam.

Sudhir Ispahani, chello’s managing director technology & operations,
explained how its services were developed originally as an extra for cable
subscribers. As a consequence, chello has been offering delivery only by
cable modem in Europe, a limitation it intends to change.

“At chello we want the world to get broadband Internet — whatever the
method of delivery,” said Ispahani.

The turning-point, said Ispahani, was the launch of satellite delivery
in regional Australia in conjunction with United Globalcom (UGC) affiliate
AUSTAR United Communications. So-called “broadband in the bush” has proved
that Internet by satellite is a viable option, enabling chello to extend
its service “well beyond the traditional urban cable footprint.”

Looking to the future of the Internet, Iain Osborne, chello’s managing
director
marketing and communications, claimed that broadband — not the free ISP —
was
the way forward. He said “always on” completely changes the way people use
the
Internet, as demonstrated in a study, details of which chello also released
on
Friday.

“chello broadband Internet users are online double the amount of time,
more people per household use the service and access it on average
seven times each day. It’s a part of daily life,” said Osborne.

chello’s survey, conducted independently by ITM Research, polled 1,500
chello subscribers and 2,000 non-chello users in Norway, Sweden, Austria,
Belgium, France and the Netherlands.

The results are startling. Not only do broadband households access
the Internet more frequently than those with dial-up connections, they
also spend substantially more online, an average of $455 in comparison
to the $274 spent by dial-up homes over the same 6-month period.

Having grown nearly 600 per cent over the last year, chello now has
153,580 subscribers in two continents. It has announced plans
to launch in Latin America later in 2000, bringing its combination of
CD-quality sound, high-quality pictures, and content in local languages
to another new market.