A significant step forward for ENG in addition to TiVO...

A significant step forward for ENG in addition to TiVO ann..

Internet phone provider Engin will launch a new high-speed broadband service for Australian homes that waives the standard fixed-line rental fee.

The rollout of the service, due in the next quarter, will come ahead of Engin's distribution of the TiVo, a digital television service that allows viewers to simultaneously record and skip through live free-to-air broadcasts.

Engin - which has established a core business providing low cost voice over internet phone (VoIP) services - has signed an agreement with Optus that allows it to use the number two telco's ADSL2+ broadband exchanges.

The company's chief executive, Ilkka Tales, said ADSL2+ high speed connections would provide broadband speeds of around 24 megabits per second, depending on the property's proximity to the exchanges.

Optus currently has 270 ADSL2+ enabled exchanges throughout Australia with another 96 expected to be commissioned by the end of March next year.

Mr Tales said Engin's wholesale arrangement with Optus allowed it to exclude the standard line rental fees that accompanied almost all broadband packages currently on the market.

While he would not reveal pricing specifics, he said packages would be aimed at low-end users and would be compellingly cheaper.

"If they (currently) pay line rental of $30 a month and they're paying $40 a month for a broadband service, you can imagine that we're going to be very competitively priced," he said.

He said average fixed line rental fee - the costs charged by carriers to connect households with the local exchange - was currently $27.50.

Meanwhile, Engin said it would become the primary distributor of TiVo in Australia and exclusively manage its mass retail distribution.

Seven Network - which owns about one third of Engin - will launch the US-developed service in Australia in early 2008.

TiVo allows viewers to choose what programs they would like to record to a digital hard drive by selecting programs on an electronic program guide.

It also able to rewind and pause a live television program.

An intelligent recording system lets users record entire seasons of televisions programs.

Engin said it would be able to bundle the TiVo product with its other VoIP and standalone internet packages.

"Our focus is currently to drive aggressive growth in terms of internet telephony," he said.

"Bundling that with a broadband service where you don't have an expensive fixed-line rental component to it will assist in driving us further into the digital media home."

© 2007 AAP