Frontier Hints It May Dump Traditional TV, Shift to Streaming Frontier is dropping hints that the telco may want to get out of the traditional cable business and instead shift to a streaming video approach. Numerous smaller cable companies have been considering such a shift for several years, noting how they lack the negotiations leverage (enjoyed by bigger companies like AT&T and Comcast) necessary to make a decent profit off of TV service. Some of these companies, like CenturyLink, have already made it clear they want to hang up on IPTV, and are trialing their own streaming offerings.

Speaking on the company's earnings call this week, Frontier CEO Dan McCarthy strongly hinted that the growing telco could follow suit. "There have been some advances and some changes in the landscape on the OTT side," McCarthy said. "We could spend time developing our own or we may partner with others, but I think that will be an important part of the strategy going forward." Of course many of these telcos face a double whammy. They're not only struggling to stay in the traditional TV race, but they're consistently losing customers tired of lagging DSL customers to cable. In fact, cable has consistently been adding 99% of each quarter's net subscriber additions for just this reason. That said, McCarthy didn't really offer anything more concrete on the company's shifting TV ambitions. "One of the key priorities is revenue generation, whether that's really on the commercial side or it's really making sure that our speeds and our network are congestion-free going forward," the CEO said. "More and more video traffic is flowing and we want, whether it's our OTT product or it's someone else's, we want to make sure that's a good experience for customers." "One of the key priorities is revenue generation, whether that's really on the commercial side or it's really making sure that our speeds and our network are congestion-free going forward," the CEO said. "More and more video traffic is flowing and we want, whether it's our OTT product or it's someone else's, we want to make sure that's a good experience for customers."







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Most recommended from 22 comments

The Engineer

join:2015-04-02

Munster, IN 5 recommendations The Engineer Member Why reinvent the wheel What I don't get is why they would drop their own IPTV offerings for their own streaming offerings. In both cases, they don't have enough subscribers to get the best rates from the content providers.



It would make more sense to me for Centurylink and Frontier to resell DirecTV Now or Sling, even though they are products of their nominal competitors. sabooher

Premium Member

join:2016-04-05

CA 2 recommendations sabooher Premium Member I have a better idea I moved late last year to an area Frontier does not service, and I dumped them!



Ever since they took over the CA/FL/TX customers it's been a train wreck. existenz

join:2014-02-12 2 recommendations existenz Member Smaller players should combine efforts for a shared OTT platform... ...as combined they could get better content deals with say 10M+ user base than 10+ players under 1M each.



Another approach could be for Sling or upcoming YouTube TV to provide OTT service to smaller players or some form of partnership. Sling or other would boost their base improving their negotiating power and small players get broader access to content w/out having to deal with content providers. gregory_t

join:2014-10-13

Mcminnville, OR 2 recommendations gregory_t Member what about the locals? I've tried a lot of tv services the last couple of years. From my experience you still need "traditional" type service to get you the local channels. Unless you're lucky enough to be able to pull a signal

using an antenna. I would do a sling TV or Directv Now plus antenna but I live too far away from the towers to get any OTAs. And frontier TV I'm not impressed with at all after having been an X1 customer. Fios Internet is a good product but their TV is lacking in so many ways.....