MONTREAL — BCE CEO George Cope described it as a “game-changing” offer in the television industry: a digital pay TV service without a set-top box, but Bell’s Alt TV offer seems to be the regular Fibe TV offer that’s less expensive and with fewer features designed to go after the cord-never market.
Available for now only to Bell Internet subscribers in Quebec and Ontario, Alt TV costs about 10% to 20% less than traditional TV, Cope said, with the basic service starting at $15 a month for 30 channels instead of $25. Additional channel packages are similar to Fibe TV (Good, Better and Best packages, and à la carte channels starting at $4 each). It’s limited to two devices streaming at a time, and doesn’t have features like PVR recording or Restart that are widely used by in-home Fibe customers. Alt TV customers can access up to 500 live and on demand channels.
Cope (pictured today in Montreal) said those features will eventually come to the Alt TV service, which runs through an app on streaming devices or on a website when accessed through a computer. Cope said he wouldn’t say when those features will become available for competitive reasons.
“I would fully expect over time to see our cable competitors will launch something similar,” Cope said, noting that Telus has launched a similar service in western Canada called Pik TV.
The lower price for Alt TV, which Bell says offers all the same live TV channels that regular Fibe TV does, is mainly due to the reduced expenditures for set-top boxes and because Bell won’t need to send an installing technician for someone who already has Bell Internet service.
Alt TV is mainly being marketed at younger people living alone in condos who otherwise would not have a pay TV subscription, Cope said. Though he admitted there could be some cannibalization of existing Fibe customers, he expected most customers would be additions rather than downgrades.
Technologically, Alt TV is identical to the apps that Bell already offers on its Apple TV app, which it announced in November could replace set-top boxes on additional TVs in a home that has Fibe TV service. Since it operates on the managed network separate from regular Internet service, Alt TV doesn’t count toward Internet data caps and is regulated as a broadcasting distribution undertaking rather than an over-the-top service, explained Nicolas Poitras, Bell’s vice-president of residential services.
Cope announced the Alt TV service during a speech at the Canadian Club in Montreal during which he spoke of the changing nature of Bell’s business — from telephone to television to Internet — of the company’s $15 billion in acquisitions and partnerships including CTV, Astral Media and MTS, and of big investments in fibre-to-the-home, including $1.14 billion in Toronto. Cope said it costs $2,000 for every home passed to set up this fibre network.
Photo by Steve Faguy
