Canadian telco Saskatchewan Telecommunications expanded its partnership with IPTV-box maker 2Wire to add home networking -- and, in the future, possibly HDTV -- to the list of services it now delivers.
2Wire already provides its asymmetric-digital-subscriber-line residential TV gateways to SaskTel’s Max Entertainment digital IPTV subscribers. Max Entertainment offers 150 digital TV channels, plus video-on-demand and digital music channels.
Under the expanded partnership deal, it will supply its ADSL 2+ residential home-networking gateway. That, combined with the next-generation access infrastructure SaskTel is now deploying, will allow SaskTel to boost bandwidth available to subscribers and support services such as HDTV.
SaskTel’s next-generation access infrastructure project will drive fiber-optic lines closer to customer homes during the next five years. The telco plans to spend $136.5 million on the project this year and another $310 million through 2010.
