Telenet Group N.V. is the largest provider of cable broadband services in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. Its business comprises the provision of

analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...

and digital

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

, fixed and mobile telephone services, primarily to residential customers in

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...

and

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

. In addition, Telenet offers services to business customers all across Belgium and in

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

under its brand Telenet Solutions. Since 11 October 2005, Telenet has been listed on the

Euronext Euronext N.V. (short for European New Exchange Technology) is a pan-European bourse that offers various trading and post-trade services. Traded assets include regulated equities, exchange-traded funds (ETF), warrants and certificates, bonds, ...

stock exchange under the ticker TNET.

Internet

Telenet has offered its residential service since 1997 under the brand name Telenet Internet through the combination of its broadband cable network, which passes some 2.4 million homes in Flanders and a part of the Brussels region. All of the networks through which Telenet offers residential services in Flanders have been upgraded to a two way digital

hybrid fibre-coaxial Hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) is a telecommunications industry term for a broadband network that combines optical fiber and coaxial cable. It has been commonly employed globally by cable television operators since the early 1990s. In a hybrid fib ...

(HFC) standard, and Telenet has direct relationships with all of its Internet and telephony customers. Its main competitors on the cable broadband Internet market are

Numericable Numericable was a major French cable operator and telecommunications services company. Numericable was originally created in 2007 from the merger between former competitors Noos and NC Numericable networks. Numericable Group SA was founded in Aug ...

and VOO in the Brussels region, and

Proximus Proximus (stylised as pro⌘imus; formerly known as Belgacom Mobile) is the largest of Belgium's three mobile telecommunications companies and is a part of Proximus Group (previously Belgacom Group). It competes with Orange Belgium and Base. ...

, the leader of the Belgian

DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...

market in the Flanders and Brussels regions. Telenet also offers voice, data and Internet services to its business customers under the brand name Telenet Solutions through its

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass ( silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a mea ...

backbone, by its acquisition of Codenet, which covers all of Belgium and Luxembourg. Through its acquisition of Sinfilo, Telenet acquired a large network of

Wi-Fi hotspot A hotspot is a physical location where people can obtain Internet access, typically using Wi-Fi technology, via a wireless local-area network (WLAN) using a router connected to an Internet service provider. Public hotspots may be created b ...

s in addition to its cable Internet service. In December 2016, Telenet submitted a proposal for the acquisition of SFR Belux from Altice, which has been authorized on 20 June 2017. This acquisition allowed Telenet to enter in the Wallon market and a serious presence in the Francophone market.

Hosting services

In January 2008, Telenet acquired Hostbasket, Belgium's largest hosting company, to offer services appropriate for organisations and companies. Hostbasket offers "classic hosting" (domain names, shared webhosting, online backup, antivirus), infrastructure (dedicated servers, co-location) and applications (hosted Exchange, hosted SharePoint, hosted CRM).

Telephony

Fixed telephony

Since 1998, Telenet has offered fixed telephony using its cable network under the brand name Telenet Freephone. In 2008, it has more than 600,000 customers. Its main competitors on the Belgian fixed telephone market are

and VOO in Brussels, using optic fibre. Its other main competitor is

, leader of the Belgian

market. It has released FreePhone Mobile in November 2011. This is a free option which allows its customers to call all mobile lines for free during the morning and evenings. An extra option called FreePhone Mobile 24 is available as well. This allows customers to call mobile lines all day.

Mobile telephony

Since July 2006, Telenet Mobile offers mobile telephony services as a full

MVNO A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobile ...

, using the Mobistar MNO-network (now

Orange Belgium Orange Belgium (known as Orange) is a Belgian telecommunications company. It competes with Proximus and Base. It was incorporated by France Télécom in 1996 under the name of Mobistar. The company re-branded as Orange on 9 May 2016 (following ...

). Today it has more than 80,000 customers. It competes with the mobile network operators

, owned by the Belgian state owned telecommunications company

Proximus Group The Proximus Group is a provider of digital services and communication in Belgium and the international markets. In Belgium, its main products and services are offered under the Proximus, Scarlet, and Mobile Vikings brands. The Group is also ac ...

. In 2009, Telenet acquired the Belgian retail store network of BelCompany from the Dutch Macintosh Retail Group. In 2011 Telenet and Voo formed a new company, Telenet Tecteo BidCo, to participate in the auction for obtaining the fourth 3G license on the Belgian market. As there were no other bidding parties they obtained this license for €71.5 million. In 2015 Telenet acquired the mobile operator Base from its previous owner

KPN KPN (in full Koninklijke KPN N.V., also Royal KPN N.V.) is a Dutch landline and mobile telecommunications company. KPN originated from a government-run postal, telegraph and telephone service and is based in Rotterdam, Netherlands. History Un ...

for €1.325 billion.

Acquisition of Eltrona

In December 2022, it was announced Telenet has acquired the

Luxembourgish Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide. As a standard form of th ...

telecommunications company, Eltrona. It was the first time Telenet had taken full control of a telecommunications company outside of Belgium.

Television

Cable television

Telenet launched Telenet Digital TV

interactive television Interactive television is a form of media convergence, adding data services to traditional television technology. It has included on-demand delivery of content, online shopping, and viewer polls. Interactive TV is an example of how new informatio ...

on its

network on 3 September, 2005. Since 2012-2013 cable customers need not pay an extra subscription to receive digital TV, but they must purchase or rent a

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

in order to view the digital TV channels and to use the interactive services based on the

Multimedia Home Platform Multimedia Home Platform (DVB-MHP) is an open middleware system standard designed by the DVB project for interactive digital television. The MHP enables the reception and execution of interactive, Java-based applications on a TV-set. Interactive ...

. Telenet also rolled out high definition television services during 2008. In July 2008 Telenet reached an agreement with Interkabel's INDI regarding the acquisition of its 800,000 cable TV customers. Its main competitors on the Belgian digital television market ( DVB-C) are Numericable and VOO in the Brussels region. Other competitors are Proximus TV

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded med ...

and TV Vlaanderen Digitaal ( DVB-S/

DVB-T2 DVB-T2 is an abbreviation for "Digital Video Broadcasting – Second Generation Terrestrial"; it is the extension of the television standard DVB-T, issued by the consortium DVB, devised for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial tele ...

), owned by Proximus and an Airbridge Investments - Providence Equity Partners consortium, in the Flanders and Brussels regions. Telenet and

North American North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Ca ...

digital media & broadcasting company

Vice Media Vice Media Group LLC is an American-Canadian digital media and broadcasting company. , the Vice Media Group included five main business areas: VICE.com (digital content); VICE STUDIOS (film and TV production) VICE TV (also known as VICELAND); ...

both launched a local version of US TV channel

Viceland Viceland (stylized in all caps), and Vice TV in the United States, are brands used for television channels owned and programmed by Vice Media. Viceland launched on February 29, 2016, with two branded cable channels; the American version (rebra ...

(itself owned by Vice and later rebranded to Vice TV) in

on 2 March 2017. It closed down 25 Augustus 2020

Set-top boxes

The Digibox (set-top box) and Digicorder (personal video recorder) are made by Advanced Digital Broadcast. Starting in 2007, Telenet started replacing the Digibox and Digicorder with HD versions, also made by Advanced Digital Broadcast. In 2019, Telenet launched the TV-box, a 4K successor to the Digibox and Digicorder. No longer made by Advanced Digital Broadcast, the TV-box is part of the Horizon 4 platform of majority stakeholder Liberty Global. Even though it is a successor to the Digicorder, it no longer houses a hard drive and instead is a cloud PVR-device. While it is still a DVB-C recorder, it requires an internet connection (unlike the Digibox and Digicorder) as both recordings and VOD-content are provided via streaming instead of the harddrive and DVB-C respectively.

Pay TV

Telenet also offers several premium TV channel packs including: * Streamz (including access to Streamz & a timeshifting service for linear channels. Formerly Play) * Streamz+ (including access to Streamz+ & a timeshifting service for linear channels) * Play More (including Streamz+, 3

Play More ''Play More'' is a Belgian premium television service owned by Telenet, the Belgian content division of Liberty Global. Prime launched together with its sister service Prime Sport (later Sporting Telenet and now Play Sports) on September 3, 2005 ...

-channels, premium channels,

Stingray Music Stingray Music is a Canada-based international multi-platform audio service that broadcasts continuous streaming music and other forms of audio on multiple channel feeds. The service is owned by Stingray Digital. While a song is playing on the ...

& a timeshifting service for linear channels) *

Play Sports Play Sports (formerly Prime Sport (2005-2012) and Sporting Telenet (2012-2015) is a brand of the Flemish cable distributor Telenet, which consists of a bundle of different (partly own) channels. Through television stations, competitions from vari ...

(including 6 Play Sports-channels, Eleven Pro League &

Eleven Sports Eleven Sports is a multinational sports and entertainment media group. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, it is owned by Andrea Radrizzani's sports and media investment platform Aser Ventures. Eleven Sports' business model initially centred a ...

. Also available as Pay-per-view) * BeTV (also including Ciné+) * BeTV Sport (including VOO Sport World & Eleven Sports) ** Option VOO Sport (including Eleven Pro League) * Option FR (Flanders Only) * Bouquet Family Fun (including premium channels, Brussels & Wallonia only) * Bouquet Discover More (including premium channels, Brussels & Wallonia only) * Bouquet Arabe (including premium channels, Brussels & Wallonia only) * Bouquet Africain (including premium channels, Brussels & Wallonia only) * Passion XL The French bouquets are provided from

VOO VOO (/vuː/) is the commercial name of the Belgian cable company, created by the Economic Interest Group ( EIG) of Brutélé GIE in (Brussels Region and Charleroi Region) and Association Liégeoise d'Electricité (A.L.E.- Télédis), currentl ...

Digital Terrestrial Television: Teletenne

On 21 June 2012, Telenet launched its pay TV

digital terrestrial television Digital terrestrial television (DTTV or DTT, or DTTB with "broadcasting") is a technology for terrestrial television in which land-based (terrestrial) television stations broadcast television content by radio waves to televisions in consumers' ...

based on DVB-T technology, called ''Teletenne''. The service has been closed down in 2014 due to low success.

Television channels: SBS Belgium

In 2014, Telenet acquired a 50% share of De Vijver Media from

Sanoma Sanoma Corporation (, formerly SanomaWSOY) is Finland's largest media group. The company has media business in Finland and a learning business in Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Norway and Spain, among others. The company is headquarte ...

, which owns SBS Belgium with the channels

VIER Play4 is a Belgian-Flemish commercial television channel. It is part of SBS Belgium and production company Woestijnvis. As of 2010, the channel has a market share of more than 7%. The channel was formerly known as VIER from 17 September 2012 t ...

and

VIJF Play5 started in October 2004 as SBS Belgium's second channel and a sister channel to VIER (formerly VT4). History On 1 October 2004, the first broadcast was that of a soccer game, even though women are the channel's target audience. By doin ...

. On 6 October 2016, SBS launched a third channel: ZES. SBS Belgium and Mediahuis co-launched a Flemish version of the radio NRJ on 3 September 2018. In 2018, Telenet acquired the shares of De Vijver Media's two other shareholders, Mediahuis and the duo Wouter Vandenhaute and Erik Watté, taking it full control of SBS Belgium. On 28 January 2021, Vier, Vijf and Zes were rebranded as Play4,

Play5 Play5 started in October 2004 as SBS Belgium's second channel and a sister channel to VIER (formerly VT4). History On 1 October 2004, the first broadcast was that of a soccer game, even though women are the channel's target audience. By doi ...

Play6 Play6 is a Belgian commercial television channel for Flemish public which started broadcasting on 6 October 2016. It is part of SBS Belgium. The channel is a sister channel of Play4 and Play5. ZES focuses on older, successful series, movies and ...

and the launch of a new free online video-on-demand service GoPlay, and a fourth channel Play7 launching on 2 April.

Streaming

On 14 September 2020, Telenet & DPG Media launched streaming service Streamz. It includes series & movies previously available on Telenet's Play-subscription (such as HBO content), original programming & content from VTM, SBS Belgium (a Telenet subsidiary), VRT and international studios. For an additional cost, subscribers can get access to Streamz+ including recent blockbuster movies. The service is available either through Telenet or Streamz itself. Customers that subscribe through Telenet can access the service through their set-top boxes (and the accompanying app and website) and Streamz (website and app), but subscribing via Streamz only allows access through the Streamz-platform.

Ownership

Liberty Global own a 57.8% stake in Telenet.

Sponsorship

Telenet is the principal sponsor of the Belgian football club KV Mechelen and a secondary sponsor of Club Brugge, another Belgian football club, and the Belgian Fidea Cycling Team. Both football clubs are active in the

Belgian Pro League The Belgian Pro League,(officially the Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons with Jupiler), is the top league competition for association football clubs in Belgium. Contested by 18 clubs since the 2020–21 season and reduced to 16 tea ...

. Telenet is a title sponsor of the Telenet UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup from the 2016–2017 season.

References

External links

* {{authority control, state=expanded Internet service providers of Belgium Belgian brands Dutch-language television networks Cable television companies Liberty Global Telecommunications companies established in 1996 Television broadcasting companies of Belgium 1996 establishments in Belgium Companies based in Brussels Companies listed on Euronext Brussels