While he was in court defending the proposed merger with Time Warner (a deal that is reportedly worth $85 billion), Randall Stephenson, the chief executive officer of AT&T, had confirmed that the national carrier is planning to debut a new live TV offering called AT&T Watch. Priced at $15 each month, this service is basically a bundle that offers various channels for AT&T customers. Subscribers of the mobile operator’s AT&T Unlimited Wireless, however, will be able to enjoy AT&T Watch free of charge.
According to a report by Variety, Stephenson brought up the AT&T Watch service in court in order to counter the United States Department of Justice’s argument that AT&T was continuously hiking up its pricing for its DirecTV satellite offering. DOJ has expressed concerns that if the merger deal happens, AT&T will be put in a position to be able to increase the prices of Time Warner’s Turner networks (which include popular fare such as CNN, TBS, and TNT, just to name a few).
But as pointed out by Stephenson, AT&T Watch is actually more affordable than other current deals, like the one being offered by Sling TV (its entry level offering costs twenty bucks per month) and Philo (priced at $16 per month). The AT&T CEO also mentioned that the new upcoming live TV offering will be launching in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, the number two biggest wireless service provider in America (check out our 2018 review of AT&T) has revealed that its 5G Evolution wireless tech is now made available in 117 new markets. With this recent expansion, 5G Evolution’s reach is now at 141 markets across the United States (here is the complete list). The company also announced that it is looking to launch its LTE LAA (license assisted access) in a trio of new cities, namely Boston in Illinois, Sacramento in California, and McAllen in Texas.
AT&T’s 5G Evolution comes with LTE Advanced features such as 256 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation), 4 x 4 MIMO (multiple input, multiple output), and 3 way carrier aggregation. The carrier is claiming that the service is capable of allowing top connection speeds of up to 400 megabits per second (mbps) on compatible mobile devices. As for LTE LAA, it can deliver speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second (gbps).
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