CenturyLink is one of the largest phone, DSL, and TV providers in the United States. Recently we got a deeper look at their future plans for their Prism IPTV platform.
We have known for some time that CenturyLink is planning to release a 17 channel “skinny” streaming video service. This new service will focus mostly on local channels and will be released in early 2017.
The new streaming service seems to be perfect for the market, which services many rural areas with weak over-the-air TV.
Now it seems that CenturyLink has bigger plans than just a 17 channel streaming service. “At this point we’ll continue serving the markets that we’re in and we think over time the over the top product might replace the Prism product over time,” CenturyLink CFO Stewart Irving told investors at an industry conference this week. “We’re not going to discontinue selling it and if we can get the channels delivered that consumers want the Prism service could potentially go away over time.”
This new streaming service will also open up CenturyLink TV to more customers. Currently you need 25 Mbps down to get the Prisma TV service, but the new streaming service will only need 10 Mbps. This means many rural subscribers who do not get 25 Mbps down can access TV through CenturyLink.
As always more competition is a good thing for cord cutters. It will be interesting to see what this new service looks like but no matter what happens the end result is a win for cord cutters.
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