C&W, Inuk Team for U.K. Triple-Play Platform

LONDON, July 9: Cable & Wireless has signed a £70 million, five-year deal to deliver Inuk Networks’ converged IPTV, VoIP and broadband-access services nationwide across the U.K.

Currently, Inuk offers triple-play services to British students in collaboration with JANET, the university network, under the Freewire brand. To date, 40-plus universities representing more than 100,000 student rooms have signed up to the Freewire service. Using Cable & Wireless’ nationwide multicast network, Freewire will be able to extend its offering beyond the current user base of students in university accommodation, beginning in March 2008.

In addition, Cable & Wireless will offer Inuk’s IPTV platform to other wholesale DSL customers who want to provide their customers with a digital television offering.

Marcus Liassides, the CEO of Inuk, noted: "Cable & Wireless has the unique capability to offer an all-national wholesale multicast platform, so for us, the deal was a no-brainer. It’s great news for our customers as it means we can deliver triple-play services into the home and it’s great news for us as we can expand the choice of services that we’re able to offer in the future."