Dan Warne24 November 2008, 3:16 PM
Despite facing a massive lawsuit from movie and TV production studios, iiNet says it will launch an IPTV service with a difference.
iiNet has revealed that it will soon launch a TV-over-internet protocol service for its 200,000 customers on iiNet DSLAMs.
It won't be a plain-vanilla TV-over-IP service though; it will come with a dual-tuner free-to-air PVR, competing head-to-head with Channel 7's Tivo. iiNet's PVR will include an electronic program guide.
It will also offer on-demand shows which iiNet says will include "TV shows and the latest movies", as well as live TV channels and interactive news, weather, games and 'voice' channels (possibly suggesting iiNet will build VoIP into the box.)
A screenshot of the IPTV interface in iiNet's Annual General Meeting slides shows some high quality channels including CNN, BBC2, ITV3 -- though these may just have been used in the mockup.
Above: a slide from the iiNet annual general meeting presentation.
iiNet already provides unmetered access to ABC's iView service, iTunes downloads, Barclay's Premier League, Golf Majors highlights, NASA TV and 60 radio stations.
Managing Director Michael Malone said the company was seeing very fast growth in the area of Naked DSL as well, suggesting a pent up level of frustration in the community about high line rental fees. 40,000 of iiNet's 200,000 own-DSLAM customers have taken a Naked DSL service.
iiNet says it now has DSLAMS operational in more than 307 exchanges across the country and has "dozens more under construction or due for expansion".
Just three days before the government's deadline for tenders for the national fibre network, iiNet argues it has already built a national network providing 90% of metropolitan Australians with access to broadband "faster than proposed under the Federal Government’s National Broadband Network."