Fastweb's Single Play Irony

Ian Fogg | September 08, 2005, 03:40 PM

Fastweb is one of the world's pioneers of IP TV and fibre to the home. Having moved to a DSL-based strategy in 2003, it's now tackling another sacred cow: the triple play.

Fastweb is now launching a conventional single play broadband service (customer keeps their existing Telecom Italia phone):

"Milan, 7 September 2005 - FASTWEB, Italy’s main alternative broadband telecommunications operator, announced today the launch of FASTWEB Light, a new ADSL service with a certified speed of 6 Mbit/s. The new offer, which is based on shared access technology, targets people who want to use FASTWEB’s broadband Internet service while keeping a telephone subscription with Telecom Italia.

Subscribers to FASTWEB Light have two options:
- Flat-rate browsing (40€ per month);
- Pay-per-use browsing with prepaid traffic using FASTCard, a prepaid and rechargeable card with 25€, 50€ and 100€ of value credit, available from FASTWEB’s dealers or directly from the company’s website www.fastweb.it.

The offer targets users seeking high-speed, high-quality Internet access guaranteed by FASTWEB’s network in the simplest possible format, that is, keeping their Telecom Italia subscription for voice services only. In addition, FASTWEB Light prepaid browsing formula provides users with greater control over their Internet spending."

Is this strange? Not really. It's only weird as the new service runs contrary to the zeitgeist of the current bubble.

This launch is a recognition that numerous Fastweb customers chose Fastweb because of the high speed broadband service, and not the IP TV. Fastweb's last published figures showed 161k IP TV customers against an overall customer base of just over 450k. Since then the overall customer base has hit 598k and Fastweb have stopped reporting their IP TV numbers.