Two days after the initial announcement, AT&T's new streaming television service DirecTV Now has officially launched on the iOS and Apple TV App Stores as a free initial download. [Direct Link] The service will allow customers to stream and subscribe to various channel bundles that range in price from $35 to $70, "with no commitments, no equipment, and no installers."
Specifically, the bundles start with 60+ channels ($35/month), 80+ channels ($50/month), 100+ channels ($60/month), and 120+ channels ($70/month). A seven day free trial is available for customers to check out any of the packages, and a limited time offer is knocking down the price of the 100+ channel bundle to $35 to entice new users into subscribing. Premium channels, like HBO and Cinemax, can be added onto any package at $5 per channel.
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DIRECTV NOW lets you stream top live channels and thousands of On Demand movies and shows instantly upon sign-up. It¹s hassle-free TV, with no commitments, no equipment, and no installers. Watch your favorite shows on your favorite devices. Start on one device, pause, and continue watching on another. Missed the first part of your favorite show that started airing 10 minutes ago? No worries! Restart your show from the beginning. Enjoy TV freedom with DIRECTV NOW.
AT&T is offering new subscribers a free Apple TV if they purchase three months of pre-paid DirecTV NOW. The new streaming service is also available to watch on the web, and on Android and Amazon devices. The company promises a seamless viewing ecosystem across all of a user's devices, so they can pause a show and pick it up on any smartphone, tablet, or web browser that supports DirecTV NOW.
Top Rated Comments
I've been using the service all day and I'm blown away with how smooth it's been running. The quality is fantastic and noticeably better coming from Sling. I jumped on the free Apple TV offer with 3 month prepayment too.
Finally looks like pay TV providers days are over. The only scary issue is that now most internet providers are now putting caps on their service. I'm limited to 1TB with Comcast, and have gone over that cap once already. This won't help that situation. I wish competition like GoogleFiber was available here, but politicians get bought out and block this from happening. Sigh
Multiple streams: 2 max, don't have to be on the same network, presumably this includes mobile streams. In order to get more, have to sign up more than once, no way to buy "extra streams" like with Netflix.
Data usage: Unmetered on AT&T Internet (U-Verse & Mobile)
Recommended bandwidth per stream: 3 Mb/s recommended for HD (I'm guessing double for 2 streams). Channels are in HD.
DVR: No solid info for now. Can rewind within a channel (or watch past shows) up to 72 hours previous.
CC (Closed Captioning): Should work as expected.