On Monday, AT&T made their new DIRECTV NOW streaming service official. It starts at $35/month and goes all the way up to $70/month. This is the company’s answer to Sling TV, PlayStation Vue and the countless other streaming services available right now. DIRECTV NOW does already have a few promotions available for its launch – which is tomorrow, November 30th – but they may have a few more coming further down the road. Right now, they are offering up their “Go Big” package which includes 100 channels and typically costs $60, for just $35. Additionally, they are giving away Amazon Fire TV Sticks and Apple TV’s when you pre-pay for one month or three months, respectively.
However, those deals are only for the launch of DIRECTV NOW. The company won’t be offering these deals for long, but they may bundle DIRECTV NOW with wireless to form a “double play”. Now these double plays aren’t anything new really. AT&T and other ISPs already do this. For instance, you can get cable TV with home phone and internet (this would be a “triple play”) for a discounted monthly fee. Now AT&T may do the same for DIRECTV NOW with their wireless service. AT&T didn’t make it official at the launch event on Monday, but they did hint at it coming in the near future. Typically with these double plays, you get an extra service for just a few bucks more than you’d be paying for just one. Now AT&T wireless customers already have a pretty big advantage to use DIRECTV NOW and that’s the fact that watching TV on DIRECTV NOW will not count against their data cap.
AT&T is excited about the advantages that DIRECTV NOW has over traditional cable or satellite TV. One of the major advantages for them is the fact that they can add customers left and right without having to install any equipment in customers homes or offices. Seeing as all of the channels are being delivered over an internet connection, and they don’t even need to be using an AT&T internet connection (as an ISP or mobile operator). Which means they can effectively reach everyone in the US. They are also undercutting their competitors right now, not by offering cheaper packages, but by pricing them relatively the same with a whole lot more content.