Foxtel via your Xbox: Australian gamers to get pay IPTV

For the one million Xbox owners out there in Australia who haven't already connected to Foxtel by now, a new opportunity has arrived to get the pay TV channels streamed to your living room and without the clunky cable installation.

In an agreement announced this morning by Foxtel chief Kim Williams, a partnership between the pay TV giant and Microsoft will provide Xbox 360 owners online access to a handful of streaming Foxtel channels. Prices for the service, which are expected to compete with Foxtel's regular bundles, have not been made available at this time.

But there is a catch: you'll have to be connected to Microsoft's Xbox Live online portal to access the channel package and this means you'll need an Xbox 'gold account'.

The channels
The channels included in the Xbox streaming package include a host of popular favourites such as the Discovery channel, Nickelodeon, Disney and MTV.  Fox Sports will also be included with the deal; however rugby league fans might not be so happy, as the channel will not include live NRL games, because that content is owned by Telstra, who own 50% of Foxtel.

Video on demand
In addition to the regular Foxtel channels, a video on demand (VoD) service will also be offered to Xbox Live subscribers. This service will provide potential customers with TV series and movie downloads at an extra cost, similar to TiVo and Playstation 3 video on demand services already available.

How much data?
The question likely to be on many people's minds is what all this will mean in terms of data downloads. iiNet provides unmetered access to the ABC's iView content portal with their 'Freezone' deal.

Details regarding 3D channels, which Foxtel are readying for the World Cup, were also not avaliable.