Stjarn-TV will invest in the installation of a MCNS.

Realizing the potential of the cable ISP market, Stjarn-TV, a major cable television network operator in Sweden, is introducing a flat rate for high-speed Internet connections in Stockholm for $45 per month. The number of cable modems in Sweden has so far been few and in scattered places. The bigger cable operators have so far only been testing their networks. Telia and Stjarn-TV are the two leading cable operators. Telia has postponed its launch several times due to technical problems. The official launch date for Telia is currently late summer 1999. Stjarn-TV is only operating in the Stockholm area, where it holds 50 percent of market, or approximately 240,000 customer households. This represents about 10 percent of the total households that have cable connection in Sweden. The company_s advantage is that its network is built with more recent technology. This month, Stjarn-TV launched high-speed cable Internet access for a flat rate of $45 per month. Each customer must also buy a cable modem for about $375. The backbone at Stjarn-TV has the capacity for 30 megabytes per second (mbps). Users_ range will be from 300 kilobytes per second to 3-4 mbps, depending on the number of simultaneous users. In the future it will possible to get unique IP-addresses for network servers, the company said. Stjarn-TV will invest in the installation of a MCNS DOCSIS (Multimedia Cable Network System Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) solution from Nortel Networks LAN-city system.