Sling TV experiences third major outage

Dish Network's (NASDAQ: DISH) fast-growing OTT service, Sling TV, experienced its third major service outage on Monday, with the streaming platform going down during several hours of prime-time viewing.

As first noted by TechCrunch, customers took to Twitter and Reddit's Sling TV forum, complaining that they were unable to access Sling TV streams across mobile, living-room and notebook computer platforms. They also griped that hold times for tech calls were approaching 45 minutes in some cases.

On its own Twitter page, Sling wrote, "We're aware some users are currently experiencing issues. Our team is working diligently to resolve the problem. Stay tuned for updates."

Dish and Sling representatives did not immediately respond to FierceCable's inquiry for further comment.

Sling faces unique challenges because it streams live channel feeds--unlike Netflix and Hulu, which stream pre-encoded streams that users access in an on-demand format.

Launched in early February, the service has already exceeded 250,000 users, according to one report. But it has suffered through notable troubles: In early April, Sling experienced a significant outage during the March Madness showdown between Kentucky and Wisconsin, an event shown on Turner Networks channels. Following that  event, Sling said it made improvements in how it handles such things as load and customer sign-ups. 

But the service also had minor problems about a week later during the highly anticipated season premiere of HBO's Game of Thrones

For more:
- read this TechCrunch story

Related links:
Inside Sling TV's March Madness meltdown: 'We weren't even aware of it for the first few hours'
Sling TV CEO warns of price increases for broadband-only accounts
Report: Dish's Sling TV now counts 250,000 paying customers