PrimeTel, the EAC’s strategic partner in the telecommunications sector, is to launch its Triple Play service targeting 170.000 households by the beginning of April.
Hermes Stephanou, PrimeTel’s Managing Director said during the company’s first official presentation that the voice-data-picture service will be competitively priced and will include many new services.
“Our objective is to offer customers voice, data and picture with one connection and at the same price that customers are paying now for any one of these services,” said Stephanou.
As for installation and customer service, Stephanou said PrimeTel is currently signing up associates to make the basic installation, but customer service will be maintained by the company’s own staff.
With respect to the installation time, Stephanou said CyTA currently keeps PrimeTel customers waiting for 30 working days, but was quick to add that following the intervention of the Telecom Regulator, CyTA has promised to adhere to a commitment to reduce the waiting time to five working days.
Own Network
PrimeTel boasts its own broadband fiber optic network with a backbone of 8Gbps, interconnecting the networks of Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos.
Having invested CYP 10 mln to rewire Cyprus and using the latest state-of-the-art equipment, PrimeTel is introducing the latest technology island-wide.
PrimeTel is sharing the EAC network for its own fiber optic cables, where available underground, but mostly suspended overhead from EAC poles. It is also bidding to place its equipment within the CyTA local sub-loops to gain access to 170.000 households. PrimeTel has signed an agreement with CYTA for the use of its local cable network.
PrimeTel also boasts its own international network with nodes in Greece, the UK and Russia, where its holding company, Teledev East has been active for over a decade serving more than 100,000 customers.
This allows PrimeTel to route outgoing calls to the most popular destinations through its own network, allowing it to control quality and pricing.
Triple Play
Triple Play is the industry term used to describe a combined package of fixed telephony, fast and continuous access to the Internet and home entertainment services like TV and video-on-demand through a single connection.
Stephanou explained that a PrimeTel subscriber would save the monthly rental paid to CyTA, gain access to the Internet at speeds of up to 24Mbps using the latest technology ADSL2+ and watch hundreds of TV channels and films on order, play on-line games, pause and record live TV and do home shopping with the use of the remote control.
Cheaper Telephony
Stephanou said that the basic package for telephony will be 20% cheaper than CyTA for local calls, 40% cheaper when both subscribers are PrimeTel customers and 30% cheaper for international calls.
The basic Internet package starts at a download speed of 300kbps and 128kbps for upload but can be upgraded to speeds of 24Mbps. It will give five email accounts and 25Mbps space for web sites.
The basic PrimeTV package will include all the local channels, 100 satellite channels, on-demand films that can be rented for three days at a cost of CYP 1.5 per film for new releases.
“The beauty of all this is that all the three main services will be offered to the customer with one connection, one account and with the ability to upgrade at will,” said Stephanou.
