TERALINK News

On 15 June 2010, for the third edition of its “Telecom & Hosting Solutions for TV Players III” workshop, P&TLuxembourg assembled some 85 European specialists from the media, broadcast and content sectors.

When establishing a business in the Grand Duchy it’s essentially to profit from the country’s leading position in telecommunications, foster the spirit of the second most advanced nation in terms of ICT, take advantage of the protection standards guided by the needs of the financial centre, and last but not least, a favourable legal framework. In terms of VAT, Luxembourg regulations offer a VAT rate of only 3% on paying television broadcasts for European viewers, completely respecting European legislation.
Amongst the major players which are already well-established in Luxembourg, or have set up business there more recently are RTL Group, Liberty TV, SES-ASTRA, Luxe TV, UPC, Intelsat, Virgin Media and many more.

Luxembourg offers numerous advantages, such as P&TLuxembourg which, with its experience and technological dynamism, provides services ranging from fixed-line to satellite, as well as mobile, datacentres, Internet, television and TERALINK, its European fibre optic network.

“Despite the competition in the television industry, our Tële vun der Post has achieved a 7% pick-up rate over two years, which is a remarkable result”, stated Micaël Weber, International Sales Manager TERALINK of P&TLuxembourg.

Today, P&TLuxembourg has embarked on cloud computing solutions for media players by offering from the same source infrastructure, platform and software as a service (SaaS)” explained Frank Weiler, Business Development at P&TLuxembourg.

Future Entertainment, a subsidiary of Virgin Media, has chosen Luxembourg because, as underlined by Ron Paans, Director of Operations, “the location is central and accessible to all types of media hubs, the infrastructure is fantastic and the authorities are willing to support the development of business projects such as ours, thereby matching our ambitions.” At present, Future Entertainment distributes 60 TV services (HD and SD) and operates 24/7 in the Grand Duchy.

The same sentiment comes from Eurovision, which highlights Luxembourg’s attraction in terms of its ease of access to the main PoPs (points of presence), its fibre connectivity and its satellite potentiality.
SES-ASTRA, a long-term partner of P&TLuxembourg, also benefits from its investments in the country. “Currently, from Luxembourg we operate 15 satellites and broadcast television programmes to about 125 million homes”, stated Tom Christophory, Senior Manager, Broadcast Systems Development at SES-ASTRA. This workshop, rich in presentations and networking opportunities, proved that Luxembourg is clearly the place to be for global media organisations.

About TERALINK
TERALINK connects the P&TLuxembourg national fibre optic network to the main telecommunications centres in Europe. Spanning over 4,000 km with 15 points of presence (PoP) in 6 European countries, TERALINK connects Luxembourg with Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Paris and Strasbourg. Based on ultramodern DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) technology linked to ROADM (Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexers), TERALINK provides a capacity up to 88 x 40 Gbit/s (3.5 Terabit/s).