ISP Origin Broadband Launch UK Pay TV Service with Netgem TV

Customers of UK ISP Origin Broadband are to be offered a new Pay TV service after IPTV supplier Netgem TV announced that it had just launched their “largest deployment deal to date” with the internet provider, which is being bundled alongside their broadband and phone packages with prices from £12.99 per month.

The set-top-boxes that Netgem TV provide – Netbox HD and Netbox 4K – tend to be similar to some of those supplied by rival video streaming companies like Roku (Now TV), including the usual array of premium content (sports), apps (Amazon Prime Video, hayu, Rakuten TV, YouTube etc.), live TV channels (Freeview) and catch-up content.

The TV company’s kit has already been adopted by a number of broadband ISPs (e.g. WightFibre, Gigaclear) and now Origin Broadband has joined their ranks. The agreement itself was first confirmed at the end of 2019 (here) but has now gone live.

Oliver Bryssau, CEO of Origin Broadband, said:

“Origin has enjoyed double-digit growth in a highly competitive marketplace, and the low-cost yet high-quality and flexible television service provided by Netgem was the perfect tool to continue to drive that growth forward.

Netgem allows us to provide a genuine value broadband and video package alternative to the £50/m and upwards routinely charged by our competitors, and has allowed us to do so quickly and with very little capital exposure.”

Sylvain Thevenot, Netgem TV’s Chief Commercial and Customer Officer, said:

“There was no better partner than Origin Broadband to introduce the next evolution of our TV service in the UK, offering greater choice at better value to the consumer and a fast launching solution to ISPs looking to add video to their services and expand their reach.

The altnets are seeing great success in the currently challenging economy and we believe that adding flexible, high quality and value-conscious video services to their offering, as Origin Broadband has just done, will help continue to drive their growth forward and increase customer loyalty.”

We should point out that Origin are not classified as an alternative network (altnet) because they make use of Openreach’s underlying infrastructure and haven’t built physical fixed line infrastructure of their own.