Sofia-based Internet service provider (ISP) Megalan Network has unveiled plans to expand its offer by offering cable television and fixed-line telephony services before the end of the year after pumping eight million leva in installing fiber-to-the-building technology, expanding its network, launching voice-over-internet-protocol (VoiP) telephony and interactive digital television.

Total investment will exceed 14 million leva before the year is over, Megalan technical director Ivo Djokov said.

Megalan’s project marks a new market trend of local area network (LAN) operators, who are branching out into telephony and television and building up an ampler array of services.

Cable television operators Cabletel and Eurocom were some of the first to offer "triple-play" packages that bundle television, landline phone andinternet access into one.

“Unlike cable operators, we have a different starting point - internet subscribers, but will begin with digital television while cable operators supply internet using outdated technology,”  Megalan co-manager Yordan Yordanov said.

Yordanov said the company did not expect to make a serious profit from telephony, although it would still be included in the package.

Set up ten years ago, Megalan claims to be the biggest LAN operator in Sofia. The company squeezed into Bulgarian telecoms’ top ten after it posted a whopping 170 per cent year-on-year increase in financial revenues for 2007. Megalan has a customer base of more than 50 000 and wants to double the figure by 2009, when its network will expand to cover the Bulgarian capital in full.

Source: Dnevnik.bg