Broadband services provider Frontier Communications has struck a deal with TiVo to market the DVR maker's Roamio OTA set-top to its high-speed Internet customers.
The OTA (short for "over the air") combines access to free broadcast channels with apps to OTT services like Netflix--no pay-TV allowed. It doesn't do pay-TV.
Frontier will make the device available to its customers starting in mid-2015, and it will mark the first time the Roamio OTA has been marketed through any kind of pay-TV or broadband services operator.
TiVo has successfully marketed its non-OTA Roamio DVRs through pay-TV operators, adding a whopping 337,000 MSO customers in the third quarter of last year alone. But this is the first time an operator has shown interested in the cord-cutter-targeted OTA device.
Frontier currently touts 2.4 million high-speed Internet customers, but that number should swell to 4.6 million pending the closure of the company's purchase of Verizon's wireline operations in California, Florida and Texas.
Frontier will be able to configure the Roamio OTA as a whole-home gateway DVR, pairing it with TiVo Mini client devices. Multiscreen and remote scheduling functions are available via the TiVo Web site, or via iOS or Android mobile apps.
"TiVo's latest generation OTA platform enables us to launch a game-changing new service with delivery of the best of broadcast television, seamlessly integrated with over-the-top video, bundled with Frontier's high-speed data service," said Frontier president and COOI Dan McCarthy, in a statement.
For more:
- read this TiVo press release
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