Slashdot Mirror
Dish Introduces $20-a-Month Streaming-TV Service
wyattstorch516 writes "Dish Networks has unveiled Sling TV, its streaming service for customers who don't want to subscribe to Cable or Satellite. From the article: "For $20 a month — yes, twenty dollars — you get access to a lineup of cable networks that includes TNT, TBS, CNN, Food Network, HGTV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, the Disney Channel, ESPN, and ESPN2. ESPN is obviously a huge get for Dish and could earn Sling TV plenty of customers all on its own. ESPN just ended another year as TV's leading cable network, and now you won't need a traditional cable package to watch it. For sports fanatics, that could prove enticing. But Dish has hinted that there may be limits on watching ESPN on mobile thanks to red tape from existing deals between the network and Verizon."
Isn't "Sling" somebody else's trademark for a like product?
Aereo didn't get the right licensing agreements with the local broadcasters... Dish already has the right contact list from its DBS business.
To say goodbye to Comcast. I have been caught with the problem of family members who wanted those certain networks.
Now...bwahahaha.
Dish is already a provider. And pays the partner networks when online streaming like they do for satellite broadcast. They are only streaming networks that have agreed to the arrangement, which explains the limited selection.
Now what is likely to happen, is that cable companies (Comcast & Time Warner) will fight it. Because Dish customers are likely to be streaming over internet-only cable services in some regions where DSL is not practical. (hell, when is DSL ever practical?)
I for one resent paying for very expensive programming that I never watch.
People are sick of paying their cable company $100/mo for TV.
So let's pay $20/mo to 3-5 different places, then $50/mo for some form of internet (DSL, Cable, Fibre). Yikes!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
What is so interesting about this netflix, hulu, and the like is that the customer is no longer paying for the delivery of the goods :: just the goods themselves.
What do you mean? Netflix and Hulu give away free broadband ISP connectivity to their customers? And Netflix and Hulu have free massive pipelines and distributed hosting to the internet? Man, that's pretty cool. Just because Netflix doesn't directly own the wires between the content and your house like ye olde cable companies doesn't mean that the customer is not paying for the delivery of the goods.
Better known as 318230.
ESPN is the reason I cancelled Dish in the first place. It's the most costly channel in their lineup and I got sick of subsizing it. Had they chosen better, cheaper channels, I would have considered it.
and wait for comcast/cable provider to bundle TV for free for their now 200$ per month internet
TFA clearly states that there will be no contract and service will be offered on a month to month basis.
Facts have a liberal bias.
Total FAIL. It is streaming only, no DVR. That means you will happily be forced to watch commercials. I wouldn't even take the service if it were free.
I'll warn you that TWC is like most providers. They will charge you though the nose for a "dry" internet connection (i.e. when you only have internet service with them). The delta between internet and TV with internet is just about $20 and add phone for another $10 (with per/min charges). Add a few dollars for the cable box and this deal will only be a small gain over an internet connection and TV.
Verizon FIOS is worse than that. They charge me over $100/month for 25/25 net only. If I added their premier TV service, I'd be at $140 or so with taxes and equipment for 2 TV's and they'd bump my internet speed to 50/50.
Where I get where this idea is headed and I would really like to just pay for what I need, I'm still money ahead to go with the full service from Verizon..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
"..customer is no longer paying for the delivery of the goods.."
yes we are. We pay for them to have an internet service, a website, and everything else you need to deliver the goods.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Do you do anything on the Internet besides stare slack-jawed at videos?
I mostly post on ./ at work.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
From the FCC:
Are cable systems required to offer "a la carte" and pay-per-view channels?
No, but they may choose to offer channels on a stand-alone basis ("a la carte") or as a pay-per-view channel. Commission rules also prohibit cable systems from requiring customers to subscribe to any tiers beyond the basic tier in order to have access to a la carte channels or pay-per-view channels offered by the system.
'Out your ass' is not a legitimate source.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I can't wait to call Comcast.
Careful... You will still need internet to stream this and unless you live in googleland where fiber abounds and fast internet connections are cheep (where is that exactly?) you will still need to pay Comcast for an internet connection. Get ready to be taken advantage of. Buying just internet service can get expensive beyond what you now see on your Comcast bill for that "package" deal you get on internet. Expect them to bump that up if you don't buy TV from them.
For me, the differential between my single 25/25 internet connection and a 50/50 connection with all the non-premium HD TV channels is about $40/month for 2 TVs. Take a look at Verizon's "pick your own package" prices online to see what I mean. What they do with their pricing isn't very intuitive. For example, I've been a Verizon customer for nearly 10 years, yet the "New customer" advertised price is almost 1/3rd cheaper than they will give me because I'm an existing customer. I've never missed paying the bill and have rarely called them to support my internet connection, but they'd rather get a new customer than keep me, even when I asked them to just match the new customer deal for me.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Not paying to watch commercials, sorry.
Thankfully Canada introduced UBB (Usage Based Billing) to prevent stuff like this from taking off here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
How long until everyone else adopts UBB to thwart the offerings from competitors?
(Yes, i know there are companies offering unlimited access and i have my service with one of them).
Looks like even "Rogers" (early UBB adopter) has started offering "unlimited" plans as an add-on.
Odd, they said they needed to charge for usage as a small number of customers were "hogging" all the bandwidth. Guess they "solved" that and now if you pay $25 you no longer "hog" the available bandwidth?
Dish already has the right contact list from its DBS business.
Dish may have the "contact list", but certainly it does not yet have the rights to stream broadcast television stations on the Internet without entering into an agreement with those stations (which likely would mean additional retransmission fees).
Of course you can already watch broadcast stations for free over the air in actual HD quality, as opposed to the very likely lower quality streaming unless you can keep a 10 Mbps H.264 stream going continuously over your Internet connection.
So let's pay $20/mo to 3-5 different places
Works for me when the difference is having to watch a show when broadcast vs. at any time I like without having to remember (or know) to record it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They will charge you though the nose for a "dry" internet connection (i.e. when you only have internet service with them). The delta between internet and TV with internet is just about $20 and add phone for another $10 (with per/min charges). Add a few dollars for the cable box and this deal will only be a small gain over an internet connection and TV.
Perhaps so, but I have TWC in NY and pay just $34.99/month for a 50/5 connection (granted, I think it is rated lower but if you use a docsis 3.0 modem on an otherwise slower priced connection, you get higher speeds) and just use a few shared accounts for netflix/hbo go/nimble tv/amazon/WatchESPN all on a Roku3 that come to something like $10-15/month
perhaps doing this is somewhat against the TOS of those services, but last time I checked, TWC bundling prices is against the terms of service of the federal government...
They were going to offer the history channel, got the package bundle all ready to go and everything, except ALIENS.
Considering that Dish is a reputable company that needs to preserve its relationship with networks, I have a feeling they've already done the legal footwork to set this up.
Masochism?
On the positive side, Comcast doubled speeds to many customers in response to growing fiber coverage in the Portland market. Competition might keep them a bit in line, they can't match gigabit offerings over fiber.
vi? Who's that?
then get a lower rate ? Ive read espn is the most expensive basic channel to carry, I havent watched it for years (ever ?) along with 80% of the other channels.
You can, as a Dish subscriber, view any channel right now over the Internet.
As a "Dish subscriber" you can stream on authenticated devices, but not as a "Sling TV subscriber". That would require another contract between Dish and content providers.