Oliver Haslam on April 1, 2017, 8:19 am

Verizon Might Launch Its Very Own Online TV Service

Verizon, the number one mobile carrier in the United States, has been hard at work tying up deals for streaming rights to television content ahead of the launch of a new online TV service according to a new report by Reuters.

Citing “people familiar with the matter,” Reuters believes that Verizon is getting ready to launch its own online streaming service, similar to the one that the likes of Apple have been trying to put together for some time now.

This would not be the first time that a cellular carrier has gotten into the online streaming game. AT&T already owns DirecTV Now and satellite TV company Dish Network launched Sling TV back in 2015. The move by Verizon, given that background, is perhaps not such a big surprise after all.

As is to be expected, Verizon did not comment on the speculation when approached, but Reuters does report that the company expects to be able to sell a package with around a dozen channels available within 2017. It is unclear what those channels may be, but in order to succeed, there are some that every streaming service needs to get on board before it can have any hope of sticking around.

We fully expect Verizon to have worked on those deals first as AT&T and Dish Network’s offerings aren’t the only two the company will be going up against in the streaming space.

With cellular providers like Verizon and AT&T looking to take over the world with moves into the television world, it is perhaps even more important that net neutrality and online privacy be a clear focus at this time.

Sling TV Cloud DVR

Given current events in the world of politics surrounding what data companies are allowed to collect and then sell, having one company provide your cellular access, broadband connection and TV service, while making bill payments much more convenient, also provides plenty of data points for them to monitor.

(Source: Fortune)