ER-Telecom targets TV growth

Russian service provider ER-Telecom plans to connect 1.7 million TV and over 250,000 telephony users by the end of this year, according to local reports.

ER-Telecom operates in 42 cities across Russia, most recently launching TV in Perm, Samara and Tyumen under the Divan-TV brand.

The company announced at the end of last month that it had connected 1.5 million TV customers and 200,000 telephony subscribers via fibre-to-the-building networks, putting it in fourth place in the Russian cable TV market, with a market share of 8.3%. The company cited figures by iKS-Consulting to show that it was the market leader in terms of new connections in the first half of the year.

Separately, rival service provider Rostelecom has reported that it has passed 100,000 GPON-based fibre customers in Siberia. The operator began rolling out its GPON network in Siberia in April in Krasnoyarsk, followed by Novosibirsk, Omsk, Kemerovo, Irkutsk, Tomsk the Trans-Baikal and Altai territories and the republics of Khakassia and Buryat Republic. The operator has invested about RUB3 billion (€70 million) in the project and is delivering a triple-play service over its networks, with access speeds up to 1Gbps.