Taking a step to offer broadband service to cable subscribers worldwide, Internet service provider @Home Nederland Friday said it will distribute its high-speed cable Internet service in the Netherlands next month.
@Home Nederland is a joint venture between @Home Network, Intel Corp. and Dutch cable firms CasTel and Palet Kabelcom. A third cable company, N.V. Nutsbedrijven Maastricht, was also announced Friday as a partner in the venture.
The @Home Nederland broadband service will feature eight content channels including news, finance, culture and games. Subscribers will also be able to get Dutch and international news, video on demand, CD-quality audio, high-speed games, movie previews and software downloading.
The initial rollout will be to the reported 126,000 subscribers of CasTel and Palet Kabelcom sometime in May. N.V. Nutsbedrijven Maastricht plans to offer the service to its estimated 55,000 cable subscribers in the fall as well.
“Building a full-feature rich media service will be our focus over the coming months and years,” says Rik Rensen, @Home Nederland’s director of programming and content. “We have a number of other deals in the pipeline and expect to
announce additional partners very soon.”
In addition to its Dutch division, Redwood City, Calif.-based @Home has divisions in Canada, and a recently announced partnership in Japan.