Over 120,000 IPTV users

More than 120,000 Canadians now subscribe to Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), according to research by Digital Home, although most are in the prairie provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. IPTV is defined as the broadcasting of television services over a high speed internet connection using fixed telephone lines. Consumers connect their televisions to a set top box that connects to their phone line. There are currently four IPTV providers in Canada: MTS, SaskTel, Telus and Bell Aliant. MTS, the incumbent fixed line provider in Manitoba, announced recently that it had signed up 70,000 customers. Its counterpart in Saskatchewan, SaskTel, reported this month that it had 51,000 IPTV customers, whilst official subscriber figures for Telus TV and Aliant TV have not been released, but the numbers are believed to be very small, according to the research. Last August, MTS became the first IPTV provider to offer a High Definition TV (HDTV) service to its customers, followed by SaskTel two months later.