T-Mobile on Tuesday partnered with Sling TV, Netflix and 22 other online video services to let some wireless customers watch all the video they want without touching one byte of their data plan.
Called , the perk is free to all T-Mobile customers with a 3 GB data plan or higher starting Nov. 19.
“It’s what you want to watch without watching your data,” T-Mobile CEO and president John Legere said at a news conference Tuesday in Los Angeles.
The deal puts Douglas County-based Sling, which , right in front of T-Mobile’s 61 million customers. As part of the partnership, T-Mobile customers can get Sling services for 30 percent off for a year.
“For us, it’s certainly part of our strategy to get more customers,” Sling CEO Roger Lynch said at the Los Angeles event. “We know that Sling is already popular with customers who have T-Mobile. And they tend to skew younger. We know there’s a good deal of overlap already, but we just made it easier for people who are T-Mobile customers.”
Lynch said this is the first service discount Sling has offered. The partnership came about five weeks ago when Lynch met with Legere at a Seattle Seahawks game.
“At halftime, we talked about the idea of doing this deal,” Lynch said. “These guys move fast.”
Sling has been the bright spot for parent Dish Network, which has lost customers who are fed up with fluctuating prices and contracts. Sling has no contracts or termination fees. It offers more than 20 channels for $20 a month.
On Monday, Dish said it lost 23,000 pay-TV subscribers in the third quarter, but the drop would have been much greater without Sling. Analyst Craig Moffett, with MoffettNathanson, in the quarter, while Dish lost 178,000.
“I think the free Sling TV streaming (from T-Mobile) could lead to higher usage and more frequent usage,” said Jon Atkin, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.
Watching video on mobile devices has grown in popularity, but two-thirds of consumers still view most of their TV shows on a TV, according to market researcher Parks Associates.
“When you look at mobile devices, you see a lot of households are watching on mobile phones or tablets. But the viewership hours are much lower,” said Glenn Hower, a Parks research analyst.
On average, viewers watch 1.8 hours a week on a phone and 1.3 hours on a tablet. On a TV, the number jumps to 20 hours.
Uncapped video viewing from T-Mobile could change that, and it’s something all carriers are trying. Verizon .
“It seems entirely conceivable that more wireless carriers will buy into this model, especially content providers,” Hower said. “Their priority is to monetize their video and to get their content in front of more eyeballs. If a wireless provider is giving them another outlet to easily get them in front of viewers, they’re going to do it.”
Hulu, Vudu, ESPN, Fox Sports and HBO Go are other channels launching with Binge On, and all video services are welcome to join. Noticeably absent are YouTube and Amazon Prime.
Legere said the company needs to be able to sort out video traffic from everything else, which is why some video services are not part of the launch. He added that T-Mobile isn’t charging customers or content providers. Its wireless network is just a conduit.
T-Mobile uses a proprietary technology to streamline video so it is about one-third the regular size, which means it uses less bandwidth.
Legere said customers on basic plans can use Binge On, but data use will be deducted from their plan. Still, with the “optimized” stream, watching a video will use one-third the bandwidth it once did, he said.
T-Mobile said it has enough capacity to handle binge viewing. It has expanded its wireless coverage, . In October, Denver-area customers averaged 3.78 MB of data per person.
“We constantly evaluate usage,” said Rich Garwood, T-Mobile’s area vice president who oversees Colorado. “We feel really confident that our data-strong network is built to withstand (demand).”
T-Mobile offers an unlimited data plan starting at $80 a month. The plan offers unlimited data for the phone, plus up to 14 GB of tethered data, which turns the phone into a Wi-Fi hot spot.
Binge On won’t drain any allotted data when streaming to the TV. But home users might pass on replacing their cable Internet with T-Mobile. Binge On is not high-definition video. Rather, it’s DVD quality and targets mobile screens.
“The intent of Binge On is for watching in the mobile environment, not to set it up in your house,” Garwood said. “It’s when you’re on the light rail, or for the kids in the back seat. You can watch as much as you want without hitting the bucket.”
Tamara Chuang: tchuang@denverpost.com or visit dpo.st/tamara
T-Mobile’s Binge On video partners:
Netflix
HBO Now
HBO Go
Hulu
Sling TV
Sling Box
ESPN
Showtime
Starz
Movieplex
Encore
T-Mobile TV
Vevo
Vessel
Univision Deportes
Major League Baseball
Go90
DirecTV
Fox Sports
Fox Sports Go
NBC Sports
Crackle
Vudu
Ustream
