Canal Digital

Canal Digital was a Nordic pay TV and internet service provider in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland that was founded in March 1997 as a joint venture between the Canal+ and the Norwegian telecommunications operator Telenor. The number of customers in 2017 was 838,000. From 2003 to 2020, Canal Digital was fully owned by Telenor. In 2004, Telenor Avidi was merged into Canal Digital and changed its name to Canal Digital cable television. In 2020, Canal Digital formed a joint venture with Viasat to form the company Allente. The merger was completed on April 13, 2021. Canal Digital started as a direct broadcast satellite television service to Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, but later expanded into cable television in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, digital terrestrial television in Finland and IPTV in Sweden and Denmark. More than 2.9 million Nordic households and activities were subscribed to their services. Between 1997 and 2007, they operated Kiosk, a pay-per-view service available on their satellite platform that showed feature films before they had their pay-TV premiere on Canal+. FTTH services have slowly started in selected areas in Norway. Internet access through the cable network is based on the EuroDOCSIS standard. Canal Digital's cable system in the newer network areas which included most of Canal Digital's cable networks in Norway was based on hybrid fibre-coaxial technology. Some other network areas are copper only, but are subjected to upgrading in order to support new TV set-top box's. Unlike its contemporary DTH rival, Viasat, Canal Digital did not own a TV-network, although during Canal+'s ownership of the company from 1997 to 2003 they had control over the Canal+ channels available in the Nordics at the time, but these were later sold to other companies and were eventually rebranded as C More in 2012. Canal Digital instead opted...