News
Verizon Deals Blow to DIRECTV's
Broadband Hopes
By Swanni
Washington, D.C. (December 9,
2011) --
DIRECTV's partnership with
Verizon to offer a wireless 4G Broadband service is dead,
according to the newsletter Communications Daily.
DIRECTV and Verizon last year began testing an in-home Broadband
and entertainment bundle in the Erie, Pennsylvania area. The
homes were set up with a satellite dish to get DIRECTV's video
service and a rooftop radio antenna that connected to Verizon's
LTE 4G Broadband network.
If successful, it could have helped DIRECTV get more company
set-tops connected to the Net so their subscribers could order
more Video on Demand films. The satcaster's VOD service, which
has hundreds of titles, requires a subscriber to connect his
set-top to a high-speed Internet service, something fewer than
10 percent of DIRECTV subscribers have done.
But Communications Daily reports that Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam
said Wednesday at a financial conference that his company has
decided to end the partnership to concentrate on the telco's new
wireless spectrum deal with Comcast, Time Warner Cable and
Bright House Networks.
“One of our hallmarks is focus,
and we’re focused on getting Comcast up and running, and I can’t
do both, so we made our choice,” Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said.
There was no word from DIRECTV on what the satcaster will do now
to increase set-top Broadband connections.
