INTERNET
Eircom drops FutureTV from ADSL trials
16-01-2001
by Aoidin Scully
Dublin-based interactive TV company, FutureTV, has been dropped from Eircom's ADSL trials, ElectricNews.Net has learned.
FutureTV, which recently expanded its Dublin facility to incorporate a Broadband Media Centre, has been working with Eircom since last April, in a contract which was estimated to be worth approximately IEP100 million.
The company, along with its competitor YesTV, was commissioned by Eircom to provide content and services for high speed Internet access services, which were initially planned for late last year or early this year.
Two hundred Eircom employees are thought to be still trialling Eircom ADSL using YesTV services.
YesTV withdrew from two planned IPOs in both March and May last year citing unfavourable market conditions.
A spokesperson for Eircom, Majella Fitzpatrick, said that the specifics of the dropped deal was between themselves and FutureTV.
"All our suppliers on the ADSL are on contract for the trials only and if they don't perform to the satisfaction of the criteria we set out, then they won't be used going forward," said Fitzpatrick.
FutureTV doesn't seem to be as convinced of the breakdown of the deal.
"We're still discussing what our next steps will be, and who knows what will come as a result. Eircom have their difficulties in terms of how they can proceed and we're just working through it with them and helping as best we can," said Ricky Rand, FutureTV's Chief Executive Officer.
Relations between the two companies have been fraught from the beginning, when Peter O'Keeffe, CEO for FutureTV Northern Europe, said that its contract represented about 20-25 percent of Eircom's investment in ADSL. Fitzpatrick then commented to ElectricNews.Net that she thought it was "quite dangerous and presumptuous of Future TV to be forecasting what the trial phase means for the service."
FutureTV says it is involved in a number of other ADSL services, and has partnerships with high-profile companies including Baltimore Technologies, Cap Gemini and Compaq Ireland.
"There is no exclusivity in our arrangement with Eircom," O'Keeffe told ElectricNews.Net last year. "We would not have set up our sales and marketing operation in Ireland if we did not intend to sell into this market."
Last August, FutureTV signed a deal with public operator Kingston interactive Television to provide a UK video-on-demand (VoD) service free of charge to 1,000 subscribers as part of a commercial ADSL trial. Source material for the service is digitally encoded for VoD at FutureTV's Dublin Broadband Media Centre, where staff also add metadata to ready the content for personalisation.
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