Let's talk

Blog

August 13, 2015 | Authored by: Vindicia Team

CenturyLink to offer an OTT service

According to Multichannel News, CenturyLink, a provider of Internet, TV and voice services, is adding OTT service to its offerings. Although details are currently scarce, CEO and company president Glen Post, did say that CenturyLink will provide a "robust competitive video offering" to customers, including customers who already subscribe to the company's Prism TV option.

Multichannel News postulates that CenturyLink has created a slimmed-down OTT service for customers who no longer want to pay the high prices of cable television. This move has come out of necessity due to the large number of OTT video streaming services available to consumers.

Around 97 percent of the people who have CenturyLink's Prism TV service bundle that service with other offerings.

Post told Multichannel News that around 97 percent of the people who have CenturyLink's Prism TV service bundle that service with other offerings, such as phone service or Internet, and they're hoping for even better results with the new OTT product.

"Over-the-top is certainly an opportunity," Post said. "We have some new products coming out over-the-top that we think will be very profitable, and we'll include those with our Prism product as well as in areas we don't have Prism."

CenturyLink continues to expand geographically as well

The company added 175,000 addressable homes to the total amount of places their services can reach and is hoping to finish the year with a total of 2.8 million residences. In January, FierceMarkets reported a key factor in CenturyLink's OTT service will be delivering higher speeds for broadband service by implementing more fiber cables.

"We expect to push fiber deeper into our network and increase the speeds for our customers," Said Stewart Ewing, EVP and CFO for CenturyLink, to FierceMarkets. "We'll continue that focus with the fiber we're deploying in the 10 markets on the consumer side."

In another article by FierceMarkets, it was noted that CenturyLink is expanding their reach across more parts of the state of Oregon, including Lake Oswego, North Plains, Gigard, West Linn as well as some parts of Washington County. CenturyLink is offering 1 gigabit per second broadband connection and Prism TV to these new customers. Previously the only option those customers had was Comcast.

While much of the expansion is focused on the Prism TV service, once CenturyLink has their OTT service up and running it would make sense to add the new service to those areas.

Why CenturyLink can compete with other OTT subscription services

When it comes to OTT video service, subscribers are interested in ease. By having the ability to bundle their OTT services with other things, such as Internet and home phone, CenturyLink is able to make things even easier for the consumer. With most OTT services, a subscriber has multiple bills to pay each month, with OTT service coming from a company like CenturyLink, the billing process is simpler. There is one bill and CenturyLink will bundle everything together to give their customers a good price.

About Author

Vindicia Team

Vindicia Team

We value our subject matter experts and the insights each of them brings to the table. We want to encourage more thought leaders to come together and share their industry knowledge through our blog. Think you have something interesting to contribute as a guest blogger? Contact us at info@vindicia.com