Comcast Goes Mobile with Streaming Service

The media company said on Sunday that the new service, called Stream, is an Internet TV service that offers HBO and other major broadcast networks for $15 a month without the need to subscribe to a separate cable TV service, as reported in SFGate. It doesn’t require a contract or any special equipment, you can quit at anytime, and no technician will need to come to your home to install anything. It plans to make it available to all its Internet service customers by early 2016.

But Stream is also a genius way to get cord cutters to start paying for cable. Stream will offer access to about a dozen networks, including the big four (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox), HBO, PBS, The CW and Telemundo.

It will work on computers, tablets and phones but won’t work directly on TVs.

Emilia Clarke in HBO’s “Game of Thrones”.

Comcast says it will launch Stream in Boston by “the end of the summer”, with Chicago, Seattle and then the rest of the country following soon after. DVR recordings will now also be available to any Internet-capable device as Stream also comes with a cloud DVR.

Um, no. Comcast has confirmed that Stream is “IP-managed”.

“If you love TV and spend most of your time with the screen on your lap as opposed to the one on the wall, Stream may just be the thing for you”, Strauss said in his post. Further, Stream won’t be available as an app on devices like Roku or Amazon Fire TV. Comcast thinks that people who subscribe to Stream will likely upgrade to a more expensive service later. When you’re just out of college and in your twenties, broadband internet and subscriptions to Netflix and HBO might satisfy your entertainment needs.

Ultimately, Comcast wants to make using Xfinity Games “as easy as switching between channels”, Comcast’s executive director of product Preston Smalley told The Verge. “Until they’re actually on the market and we can judge them on the merits of the actual service, it’s a complete guessing game”. The streaming service will enable Comcast to have a stake in the burgeoning online streaming market, but will face intense competition from Dish’s Sling TV and the likes.

At an investor conference earlier this year, Brian Roberts, Comcast’s CEO, said that his company has as many software engineers as Facebook. Other streaming options such as Dish’s Sling TV ($20 monthly for 20 channels) and Apple’s streaming service ($25-$35 monthly for 25 channels) are priced somewhere in between.

It’s a grand experiment to combat the cord cutting trend.