Sky & Telecom Italia Team for Winter Olympics Coverage

ROME: Sky and Telecom Italia have entered into a partnership that sees Sky's dedicated Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics channels being broadcast over TIM's broadband and ultra-broadband networks.

The partnership also includes the prospect of other major Sky-branded sporting events of national interest to follow. Telecom Italia will be offering all of its mobile telephony clients a chance to access exclusive Sky sports content. The two companies have signed a letter of intent to examine the feasibility of a next-generation IPTV platform, over which the entire Sky offering may be distributed.

“We are particularly pleased with this major agreement,” said Telecom Italia CEO Marco Patuano. “It reflects our strategy of focusing more closely on leading-edge services and, in particular, consumer market entertainment. It allows us to offer our customers the finest choice of major, exclusive, top-quality events via our applications and network infrastructure. As a result of this partnership, Telecom Italia’s technological expertise and Sky’s content know-how come together to offer the prospect of implementing a new business approach to accessing audiovisual content ‘over-the-network’.”

“We are very pleased with this agreement,” added Andrea Zappia, CEO of Sky Italia. “It marks the start of a significant partnership between two companies that are leaders in their respective fields.In a continuously-evolving market, it should give an even broader access to what is probably the best television offer available on the Italian market. It is a project that is consistent with Sky’s strategy, which has always been to work to distribute its channels over the best-performing platforms. Telecom Italia’s fibre optics expansion plan in Italy is a significant factor for making Sky content available also where satellite signals are hard to receive, all the while ensuring that the quality remains high. Sky and Telecom Italia’s different areas of expertise may help creating a next-generation IPTV platform to rival the world’s best.”