Rostelecom inks Disney deal, eyes Armenia

Rostelecom inks Disney deal, eyes Armenia
09.59 Europe/London, January 13, 2012 By Chris Dziadul

The Russian telco Rostelecom has signed a licensing agreement with Disney under which it will be able to offer the latter’s content – both in SD and HD – to its IPTV subscribers on an on demand basis.

Although Rostelecom currently operates IPTV platforms, with a total of over 500,000 subscribers, under various names including Avangard TV (North West Federal District), U-Tel (Ural Federal District) and Disel TV (South and North Caucasus Federal District), they are expected to be brought under a single brand name sometime this year.

In a separate development, it has been reported that Romtelecom plans to enter the market in Armenia through the acquisition of a 75% minus one share in the operator GNC-Alfa.

It is also understood to be targeting the ISP Ucom.

According to Kommersant, the two Armenian companies together account for at least 13% of the country’s broadband market.