C Spire will be launching a new service to uplift the in-home television viewing experience through a content delivery platform which will not need traditional set top boxes.
The announcement was made today, at the American Cable Association and National Cable Television Cooperative annual show in Orlando, Florida.
The service tagged MobiTV Connect Platform, is an IP-based platform to allow cable operators to provide their services via apps on consumer devices instead of deploying set-top boxes.
In a first in U.S., the IP video delivery platform designed together with MobiTV, features television content consumption acrosspopular streaming devices, including Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, select smart TVs, Android, iOS and online via a latest app available on smartphones, tablets and laptops.
The service will come with full linear TV line up, including local stations, video on demand, cloud digital video recording and a week long catch up TV.
The Mississippi-based group claims to be the sixth largest mobile communications unit and has plans to provide low-cost user-selective channel packages, as its next move.
Since the new service relies on in-home streaming and mobile devices, it eliminates the need for traditional set top boxes.
“This next generation service leverages our long-standing history of providing customer-inspired wireless experiences and will look and feel more like an app than your standard cable TV service with features such as in-depth search, personal recommendations and catch up TV,” conveyed Suzy Hays, senior vice president, Consumer Markets, C Spire.
The company will kick-start the beta testing of the service this November and will include average subscriber opinions for adding more retail channels before the commercial launch.
C Spire also offers Gigabit speed Internet access, super HD TV and digital home phone services, with its pay TV service, called Super HD TV, sporting a mobile app with TV Everywhere support, interactive guide, and a whole home DVR that can record up to 400 hours of HD and record six shows at the same time.