ISP Lothian Broadband Adds Pay TV and VoIP Home Phone

Scottish ISP Lothian Broadband, which is building a gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 70,000 premises across rural parts of the Highlands and East to Mid Lothian, has become the latest provider to introduce a Netgem powered Pay TV service and they’ve also launched a VoIP based home phone solution from Netsapiens.

Netgem has already been widely adopted by a growing number of ISPs, particularly smaller alternative networks. The 4K capable set-top-box that they provide tends to be similar to some of those supplied by rival video streaming companies, including the usual array of premium content (sports), apps, live TV channels (Freeview + premium channels), voice control via Amazon Alexa and catch-up content etc.

On top of that, the provider has also introduced a VoIP powered home telephone service, which harnesses the Netsapiens communications platform. As a result, Lothian Broadband can now claim to be a triple-play provider (broadband, phone and TV), but at present it seems like you can only get the triple-play service when also taking their 900Mbps “PureFibre” plan as part of a special bundle for £57.49 per month for the first 12 months (inc. Plume Mesh WiFi); the post-contract price of this bundle is not stated.

Customers who take that bundle will also benefit from 1 year of free Amazon Prime Video and any orders which are installed before 21st December 2022 will be entered into a prize draw to win a QLED 8K HDR Smart TV (worth over £1,000).

Gavin Rodgers, CEO of Lothian Broadband, said:

“The partnership with Netgem allows us to bring a first-class TV and phone offering in conjunction with our 10Gb capable full-fibre broadband service to rural and semi-rural areas in Scotland, helping further to bridge the digital divide. Being able to provide this triple play service thanks to Netgem is an exciting way for us to deliver even more value to our customers across the Lothians and the Highlands.”

All of this sounds good, although it would be nice to know how much it would cost to add the TV and Home Phone service as optional extras to existing packages. Restricting such features at launch to just one bundle may annoy some of their existing subscribers, but we assume that will change.