1:00 AM -- If you were a doctor you'd think Europe had caught the IPTV plague, because there's a fearsome rash of broadband TV services springing up all over the Old Continent's nether regions. (See Poland's Dialog Tunes in to IPTV, Belgians Eat Up IPTV, Telefónica's Profits Leap in Q3, Euro IPTV Update, Soccer Kickstarts BT's IPTV Growth, and IPTV Growth Gets Euro Pop.)

In the Czech Republic, Telefónica O2 Czech Republic isn't having the IPTV market to itself. (See More Euro IPTV Growth.) Competitive carrier Volny , a subsidiary of Telekom Austria AG (NYSE: TKA; Vienna: TKA), launched its service a few months ago, having trialed its service in Prague earlier this year, and now says its commercial offer is available to more than 500,000 Czech homes. (See Volny Trials IPTV and Verimatrix Wins at Volny.) And in Italy, reports suggest that competitive carrier Wind Telecomunicazioni SpA is set to launch its telco TV service in the coming weeks, a move that will put it head-to-head with the might of Telecom Italia (TIM) and Fastweb SpA (Milan: FWB) in the Italian triple-play services market.

The carrier, which reported more than 847,000 DSL customers at the end of September, is working with Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) on its IPTV launch. (See Wind, Telefónica Pick Alcatel.)

— Ray Le Maistre, International Couch Potato, Light Reading