@ Glenn Carstens-Peters
Digi Belgium, the 4th telecom operator on the Belgian market, has postponed its launch to a later date, although it had initially announced that it would offer its commercial offers “during the summer”we learned on Friday, the last day of this season. The company is currently testing the capacity of its networks and assures that it is “in the final stretch”.
Digi Belgium is the result of a joint venture between the Romanian telecom group Digi and the Belgian companies Citymesh and Cegeka. It intends “shake the market” from its launch by combining fair and affordable prices with a reliable network and quality customer service.
In mid-May, its CEO Jeroen Degadt had promised “unprecedented prices” for the benefit of consumers and announced a launch during the summer. In the end, nothing came of it, with the operator saying it wanted to carry out tests before marketing its offers.
He “intends to deploy its own fibre optic network with the aim of serving all major cities in Belgium within five years. To achieve this, some 2 million Belgian households must be connected to the Digi network. In short, there is only one watchword: test, test and test again!”the company announced on Friday.
In this context, it is looking for Brussels test homes. For example, residents of the Cureghem district can benefit from a free connection to its network. In total, nearly 10,000 households can already be connected to the Belgian-Romanian operator’s network, and some have already been connected.
Final test phase
Digi added that it has also started the final phase of testing for mobile internet in order to “guarantee impeccable national coverage from its launch”.
“We have entered the very last phase”insists Jeroen Degadt. “We need to provide a reliable network (…). We are now testing it in different phases, both in small groups and on a large scale with real consumers. We will launch our commercial offers as soon as this test phase is over.”
The boss does not, however, specify when this will end. “It could be very quick if everything goes well, but it could also be that we need more time”he warns. Recruitment is on track for the launch, Jeroen Degadt continues, although the company is still looking for staff for infrastructure work and sales teams.
These infrastructure works are indeed considerable since Digi aims to lay fibre optic cables in all the major cities in Belgium within five years. The boss does not rule out cooperation with competitors “if it benefits consumers”Proximus has been working for years on the deployment of optical fibre and, in Flanders, Telenet is also installing cables through its joint venture Wyre.
Around 30,000 people have already registered to become customers, the operator also claims, and it also plans to open its first physical stores in Brussels and Ghent soon.
