Nova Telecommunications & Media S.M.S.A. is a Greek

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

company which provides

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

, mobile and fixed services. It also offers satellite services in

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

. It was traded on the

Athens Exchange The Athens Stock Exchange (ASE or ATHEX; , ''Chrimatistírio Athinón'') is the stock exchange of Greece, based in the capital city of Athens. It was founded in 1876. There are currently five markets operating in ATHEX: regulated securities mark ...

until its delisting in 2021. In June 2016, the services for clients and SMEs were rebranded under the Nova brand. The company gave up Forthnet brand completely in June 2020. On 29 May 2020

BC Partners BC Partners LLP is a British international investment firm with over $40 billion of assets under management across private equity, credit and real estate in Europe and North America. Its global headquarters are in London. The firm invests across ...

United Group United Group B.V. is an alternative telecom provider in the Balkans that operates both telecommunications platforms and mass media outlets. History United Group was formed in 2007, as a Luxembourg-registered multinational entity, in a merger of ...

agreed to purchase a majority stake in Nova from a consortium of 4 Greek banks. As of 29 April 2021 is the sole shareholder. On October 15, 2021, Nova announced that they would be shutting down some of their older services (like Dialup, Call-by-Call and old technology ADSL) on December 15 of the same year. On January 11, 2023,

Wind Hellas Wind Hellas (formerly TELESTET Hellas and later also TIM Hellas) was a Greek integrated telecommunications provider with headquarters in Athens, Greece. As of September 2010, Wind was the third largest mobile operator in Greece (after Cosmote ...

merged with Nova, resulting in the rebranding of all fixed and mobile telephony, internet, and pay-TV services under the Nova brand. The merger created the second largest integrated telecommunications provider in Greece.

History

Forthnet was established in October 1995 by Minoan Lines SA and the

Foundation for Research & Technology – Hellas The Foundation for Research & Technology – Hellas (FORTH) () is a research center in Greece, supervised by thMinistry of Developmentthrough its General Secretariat for Research and Innovation. It is the largest research center in Greece, consis ...

. Nova brand was launched in Greece in December 1999 for the

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location.ITU Radio Regulations, Section IV. Radio Stations and Systems ...

platform by

Naspers Naspers Limited (until 1998 Die Nasionale Pers) is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town. The company has interests in online retail, publishing, real estate, and ventu ...

, a

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

n company, who also operated

MultiChoice MultiChoice is a South Africa, South African company that operates DStv, a major satellite television service in Sub-Saharan Africa. The company also operates GOtv Africa, GOtv, a minor satellite TV service operating in 9 countries, and Showmax, ...

. In 2002, Nova absorbed the Alpha Digital satellite television platform. On April 14, 2008, Forthnet reached an agreement with

to purchase Netmed, the parent company of Nova satellite television platform in Greece and Cyprus for €430 million. In 2010, Nova Greece had 363,679 subscribers. HD service counted 52,968 subscribers in 2011. In the end June 2015 the platform had 509,088 subscribers, while one year later, June 2016 it had a decrease to 460,252. In July 2017, it was referred that Nova had 430,000 subscribers. In 2020, Nova had 551,000 broadband internet subscribers and 457,000 pay television subscribers. In March 2021, it was announced that Nova had 456,500 pay television subscribers making it the second largest TV provider.

Satellite Technical information

Nova broadcasts in standard definition using the

DVB-S Digital Video Broadcasting – Satellite (DVB-S) is the original DVB standard for satellite television and dates from 1995, in its first release, while development lasted from 1993 to 1997. The first commercial applications were by Canal+ in ...

MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...

format and (since September 2010) in high definition using the DVB-S

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...

format through

Hot Bird Hot Bird (also styled Hotbird) is a group of satellites operated by Eutelsat, located at 13 °E over the equator ( orbital position) and with a transmitting footprint over Asia, Europe, North Africa, Americas and the Middle East. Only digital r ...

8 satellite at 13°E. The service is encrypted with Irdeto

conditional access Conditional access (CA) is a term commonly used in relation to software and to digital television systems. Conditional access is an evaluation to ensure the person who is seeking access to content is authorized to access the content. Access is man ...

system. Until recently the subscribers had the option of buying a specific set-top box, or using any DVB-S Irdeto enabled set-top box, but since September 2009 new subscribers are only allowed to use the company's own set-top box. This change of policy has raised some significant controversy. Nova has also introduced a

digital video Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data. This is in contrast to analog video, which represents moving visual images in the form of analog signals. Digital video comprises ...

service, accessible only through a (different) specific set-top box. This service requires an extra subscription fee but also provides the subscriber with the option to watch two different channels on two different TV sets in the same household.

Digital satellite receivers

Nova Satellite Package includes digital satellite receivers manufactured by Pace. The current models are NovaBox HD 831 and NovaBox HD PVR 865. Older models were Panasat 1110, Panasat 910, as well as the older Panasat 720i, Panasat 700 and Panasat 642, manufactured by Panasat.

Nova channels

Nova operates 4 Novacinema and 14

Novasports Novasports is a Greek sports pay television network owned by Nova (Greece), Nova, a subsidiary of Greek telecommunications company of the same name. It is available exclusively on Nova (Greece), Nova, a DTH satellite service. It is available ter ...

pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...

channels and an entertainment channel Novalife. Nova channels are available in

through CytaVision, PrimeTel & Cablenet platforms.

Nova Cyprus

Nova has been providing satellite television and internet services in Cyprus since 2004. Most television channels are available, except generalist television channels from Greece which do not have a broadcasting license for Cyprus.

Logos

The new NOVA logo from 2022 shares the same style with the largest telecommunications company in

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

, Vivacom. This is due to Vivacom and Nova belonging to the same parent company,

References

External links

Nova official websiteNova Cyprus official website
{{Authority control Telecommunications companies established in 1995 Companies based in Attica Internet service providers of Greece Direct broadcast satellite services Television networks in Greece Mobile phone companies of Greece Greek brands Companies formerly listed on the Athens Exchange Greek companies established in 1995