@Home Netherlands, subsidiary of @Home Networks Inc. has tapped WorldPort Communications Inc.’s EnerTel,
WorldPort’s operating subsidiary in The Netherlands, for nationwide
backbone services, the companies announced Wednesday.
@Home plans to launch new broadband Internet and content services to
subscribers through that nation’s cable television providers. According to
the company, the Netherlands is the most densely cabled nation in Europe,
with more than 90 percent of all households directly connected to cable.
EnerTel will offer broadband connectivity between @Home’s network hub in
Amsterdam, @Home’s regional data centers in the Netherlands, the cable
network operations of Castel and Palet and
the Amsterdam Internet Exchange. EnerTel will create a customized backbone
network for @Home utilizing Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology to
provide the high speed access.
@Home Netherlands is a joint venture of U.S.-based @Home Network, Dutch
cable companies CasTel and Palet, and Intel. @Home Netherlands expects to
it will launch broadband cable Internet services to homes in the
Netherlands by mid 1999. Content offering will include news, entertainment,
full motion video and CD-quality sound.
“Based on quality of service, we have chosen EnerTel to deliver our
backbone traffic and to build our ATM-based network,” said Jamie Howard,
CEO of @Home Netherlands.
“EnerTel has proven to be far ahead of competitors in the field of
broadband traffic for Internet services, for instance by developing and
building the largest European Intranet for the Dutch educational system —
KennisNet. EnerTel also showed us that it could offer megabits per second
at a very competitive rate.”
“@Home Netherlands’s customers will have access to a whole new world of
higher speed, higher quality Internet-based multimedia services, made
faster and more cost effective by WorldPort/EnerTel’s advanced fiber optic
network. This is technology partnering and convergence at its best,” said
Stephen Courter, chief financial officer for WorldPort Europe.
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