AirTV Player

Sling TV subscribers that prepay for three months of Sling TV’s $20/mo “Orange” 30-channel streaming cable TV plan can get an AirTV Player + Adapter for $50, a discount of $79.99 off the $129.99 retail price.

Dish Network’s Sling TV service rebranded its service today, in light of competitive pressure from AT&T’s DirecTV Now and new streaming services from YouTube and Hulu. The company ditched its “basic TV” marketing pitch and has now recast the service as “A La Carte TV,” but the changes are in name-only. There is nothing different about the packages or pricing, just the marketing message pushing their packages.

“A La Carte TV is choice in an industry that prevents it,” the Sling TV website states. “Personalize your own channel lineup. Start with the service that’s best for you, then customize with Extras in your favorite TV genres like Sports, Comedy, Kids, News, Lifestyle, Hollywood Movies, and Spanish TV. Change your service online anytime.”

“As we expected, competitors are coming out of the woodwork,” wrote Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch in a blog post. “However, we didn’t expect that they’d drag three key pieces of Old TV baggage with them: bloated bundles, higher prices and lack of flexibility. The only choices these competitors give consumers is a big bundle or even bigger bundles. That isn’t the choice consumers want. Plus, they’re making people pay for features and channels they may not want. The ‘new guys’ are missing the point and re-creating the sins of Old TV.”

Lynch admits Sling TV isn’t true “a la carte,” because subscribers still end up with channels they don’t want.

“Every consumer would love to just pay $20 and then choose the twenty channels they want,” Lynch wrote. “And we would love that too. We would do that in a heartbeat if programmers would let us…but they won’t.”

Sling TV is also attempting to find a niche targeting international audiences with packages of international networks that are either not available on cable, or can cost a fortune.

“Sling TV is the only pay-TV service that offers the ability to subscribe only to programming from a specific region, including Mexico, Spain, South America and the Caribbean,” Lynch wrote, adding the service now offers more than 300 channels across more than 20 language groups.

The total price of the three-months of prepaid Orange service and the AirPlay TV + Adapter is $124.97, before state and local sales taxes are applied. Subscribers can also qualify for the deal with other packages:

• Prepay for four months of Sling TV if your monthly payment is between $15-$20 and get AirTV Player and AirTV Adapter for $50.
• Prepay for six months of Sling TV if your monthly payment is under $15 and get AirTV Player and AirTV Adapter for $50.

Sling TV customers can visit sling.com/devices/airtv to buy the bundle. A separate deal offering a 25% discount off an RCA indoor TV antenna was not working at the time this article was written. Existing Sling TV customers can also qualify for this promotion by writing to the company’s social media team on Sling TV’s Facebook page.

The AirTV Player allows users to combine over-the-air free TV with streaming services without having to change viewing sources on your television.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is getting 14 stations larger with the announced $240 million acquisition of TV stations in small markets owned and operated by Bonten Media.

• WCYB (NBC) and WEMT (Fox) serving eastern Tennessee and western Virginia
• WCTI (ABC) and WYDO (Fox) in North Carolina
• KCVU (Fox), KRCR (ABC), KRVU (MNT), KUCO (UNI), KAEF (ABC), KBVU (Fox), KECA (CW) and KEUV (UNI) in California
• KECI (NBC), KCFW (NBC) and KTVM (NBC) in Montana
• KTXS (ABC), KTES (Me-TV) and KTXE (ABC) in Texas

The station acquisitions will increase Sinclair’s presence in states where it already operates, and could directly affect cable and satellite TV customers because of Sinclair’s usual practice of demanding high compensation fees for permission to carry its stations on the pay TV dial.

WCTI-TV New Bern/Greenville/Washington/
Jacksonville, N.C. is just one of the stations being acquired by Sinclair.

The acquisition allows Sinclair to make advertising opportunities available on a larger number of stations and will help Sinclair expand the number of stations that carry its digital subchannel networks including Comet, a sci-fi channel, Charge!, which airs action-oriented programming, and TBD, a short-form programming network that relies heavily on online media productions.

“We look forward to welcoming the Bonten employees into the Sinclair family and are pleased to be growing our regional presence in several states where we already operate,” said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley in a statement. “We believe our economies of scale help us bring improvements to small market stations, including investments in news, other quality local programming, and multicast opportunities with our emerging networks.”

The current deal is only a preview of the kind of TV station consolidation expected with Sinclair’s anticipated acquisition of Tribune Media, which owns familiar large market stations like WPIX-New York, KTLA-Los Angeles and WGN-Chicago.

Last week, FCC chairman Ajit Pai led the Commission to make it easier for large station owner groups to acquire more stations. Sinclair is currently the second-largest TV station owner in the U.S. (behind Nexstar Media Group) with 165 stations if its deal with Bonten is approved by regulators. Should it acquire Tribune, it would become the nation’s largest TV station operator by far.

Verizon has announced near-gigabit speeds will soon be available to its FiOS customers in eight markets starting April 30th at prices as low as $69.99 a month.

The new speed tier will cost less than half of Verizon FiOS’ currently advertised 500/500Mbps plan, and less than the 750Mbps plan some customers have been able to buy during the last three months in select cities.

FiOS Gigabit Connection will not actually deliver 1,000/1,000Mbps service, but it will come close with download speeds up to 940Mbps and 880Mbps for uploads.

Current FiOS customers will be able to upgrade their internet speed and see a dramatic bill reduction starting April 30, according to a Verizon representative.

Unfortunately, all Verizon FiOS customers will not be able to take advantage of the upgraded speeds and lower prices immediately. For now, only customers in the following areas qualify:

• New York (City and immediate suburbs)
• Portions of Northern New Jersey
• Philadelphia
• Richmond and Hampton Roads, Va.
• Boston
• Providence, R.I.
• Washington, D.C.

Pricing will depend on the level of service you have. Equipment rental, taxes and fees are not included. Customers must order online to get this pricing:

• Standalone (non-promotional/never expires): $69.99/mo
• Triple-play bundle price: $79.99/mo, rising to $84.99 in year two

Customers in the qualified markets noted above currently subscribed to Verizon’s 750/750Mbps plan ($150/mo) will be transitioned to the new gigabit plan automatically and get a lower bill as well.

As FiOS Gigabit Connection is introduced, Verizon will dramatically cut the number of internet plans it offers customers in areas where gigabit speeds are available. Verizon is expected to drop its 100, 150, 300, 500, and 750Mbps tiers, leaving just two — an entry-level 50/50Mbps plan starting at $39.99 and the gigabit plan for just under $70.

In other cities where gigabit speeds will not be available for now, customers are stuck with lower speeds and higher prices. Verizon does not have a timetable when other cities will receive upgrades at this time.

Public Knowledge released this video today showing FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has ‘gone rogue’ with favors for his Big Telecom friends but none for you. (1:15)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to effectively deregulate the $45 billion business data services market in a win for companies like AT&T Inc, CenturyLink Inc and Verizon Communications Inc that will likely lead to price hikes for many small businesses.

The 2-1 vote is a blow to companies such as Sprint Corp and others that claim prices for business data are too high and backed a 2016 plan under former President Barack Obama that would have cut prices.

It marked a significant step in FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s aggressive agenda to roll back many existing telecommunications rules and Obama era regulations.

Small businesses, schools, libraries and others rely on business data services, or special-access lines, to transmit large amounts of data quickly.

The services are used, among other applications, to connect banks to ATM machines or gasoline pump credit card readers. Wireless carriers rely on them to get data from an end user to a node in a major network or the so-called backhaul of mobile traffic.

Thursday’s vote scrapped most regulatory requirements in the business data services market, although some price caps in areas with little competition will be retained.

Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who accused her Republican colleagues of siding with “the interests of multibillion-dollar providers,” said the ruling “opens the door to immediate price hikes” to small businesses. The rule deregulates pricing in a majority of counties and more than 90 percent of buildings using the services.

Pai defended the decision, saying regulatory requirements had threatened competition and investment.

Pai plans as early as next week to unveil plans to dismantle the Obama administration’s “net neutrality” rules, even as he favors a free and open internet under a different regulatory scheme.

He declined to discuss his plans, but said he had met this week with executives at Facebook Inc, Oracle Corp, Cisco Systems Inc and Intel Corp to discuss internet issues.

In recent days, the independent Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, the European Union and Democratic members of Congress have raised concerns about the lifting of net neutrality rules.

Under Obama, then FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in April 2016 proposed a sweeping reform plan for business data services that aimed to reduce prices paid. Wheeler had proposed maintaining and lowering lower price caps using legacy data systems with a phased-in 11 percent price reduction.

Sprint, which backed Wheeler’s proposal, told the FCC in a March 22 letter that “thousands of large and small businesses across the country were paying far too much for broadband because of inadequate competition.”

CenturyLink praised Thursday’s decision as something that aligned regulations with “competitive market realities.” Comcast Corp said the vote would help minimize “burdensome and investment-killing regulations, specifically on new entrants.”

Advocacy group Public Knowledge said the decision “doubles down on incumbent market power, forcing businesses, hospitals, schools, and ultimately consumers to pay more for essential connectivity.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Andrew Hay and Tom Brown).