After launching its broadband services to six European countries in March, chello broadband n.v. has grown by 190 percent to more than 106,000 subscribers.
Touting that it is the first broadband Internet company in Europe to achieve the six figure
milestone, chello provides always on, cable broadband Internet service for a flat monthly fee. It runs across AORTA, Europe’s largest broadband IP network and distributed caching service, to users in the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, France, Norway, Sweden and Germany in each country’s native language.
Broadband Internet service is growing overall in Europe. In a survey released last week, Forrester Research predicts that 20 million Europeans will have broadband access by 2003. Leading the way to broadband access will be Swedish users, 72 percent of whom are already online.
Roger Lynch, president and CEO of chello, said the huge growth in subscribers — to approximately 106,500 as of Dec. 6 — is attributed to the overall growth of broadband in its markets. Sixty percent of its growth occurred in the past three months, he said.
“This latest number comes from solid performance in
all established markets. . .and we anticipate strong subscriber growth in the Swedish
market, where we began offering our service in November,” he said. “We expect this
demand to continue, as technology and content enhancements
make the service ever more attractive.”
In addition to its influx of subscribers in recent months, chello also received the award for
Best European Consumer ISP at the recent ISP Forum 99. The company potentially reaches 9 million European subscribers with its cable Internet service.
chello is a division of United Pan-Europe Communications (UPC), which provides cable television, telephony, high-speed Internet access and programming services in 12 countries
across Europe and in Israel.
