Iliad buys Alice, Free grows VOD sales

French broadband service provider Iliad, which already runs the Free IPTV service, has finalized a deal to buy Telecom Italia's Alice France unit for slightly more than $1.1 billion. News of the deal has been circulating for month, as Telecom Italia has been trying to streamline and reduce costs, while Iliad was trying to beef up in the competitive broadband market in France.

Meanwhile, Iliad's Free ISP unit said demand for its Freebox TV IPTV video-on-demand offering had surged this year, with sales of nearly 2.9 million VOD titles in the first half. Subscriber usage of VOD has tripled in the last two years, the company said.

For more:
- see this Dow Jones Newswires post at Easy Bourse
- check out this story at IPTV News

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Iliad made a move on Alice earlier this year. Iliad report
European IPTV providers have been seeing strong growth. European IPTV report