The Sunday Telegraph says talks are believed to be at an early stage and would probably offer live programmes and streaming
Vodafone and Three are exploring plans to launch a TV service in the UK after their merger was approved last December. It is expected to complete in the first half of this year.
According to a report in The Sunday Telegraph, mobile providers have held initial discussions about rolling out a subscription TV service. It suggests, “The proposed move into TV would underscore efforts by the newly merged company to establish a stronger foothold in the broadband market”.
Vodafone and Three UK argued their merger was essential to gain the scale to compete effectively against BT/EE and Virgin Media O2. Both offer pay-TV bundles. As Mark Newman, Chief Analyst at TM Forum noted recently, teclos have had at best “mixed results” from diversifying into TV services. He was chairing the opening panel, What’s a telco for?, at our recent, annual Telco to techco virtual conference.
The article also speculates that, “the mooted service would likely offer live TV as well as access to third-party streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime”.
The Three/Vodafone will create the UK’s largest mobile provider with around 27 million customers and reduce the number of network operators from four to three.
