Lyfe Communications is trying to siphon away subscribers from legacy cable and satellite services in the Salt Lake City area by offering video, high-speed internet and phone service in one bundled package.
It says a deal to acquire television broadcast rights from Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency (Utopia) round out the equation of what it can offer some 1.5M potential subscribers in the Greater Salt lake Valley.
Lyfe’s CEO Robert Bryson commented, “We differentiate ourselves from traditional cable and satellite, we believe, through our next generation technology development, which uses the functionality of our set top boxes and software to provide the consumer more of an interactive feel and mesh the Internet and TV. In addition to the meshing of the Internet and TV technology development, the mobility of our developing product offerings helps differentiate us from the traditional cable and satellite operators. Given the size and resources of the traditional satellite and cable operators, the ability to differentiate our products is very important.”
Utopia brings $16M in federal stimulus funding to Lyfe, and means that it now owns its own IP voice, TV, and data access and platforms and network. It uses fiber optic cable to bring the package to its customers.
RBR-TVBR observation: Competition just keeps on coming in the MVPD business, thanks to the simultaneous emergence of companies moving in with telco and internet origins. And Lyfe will be one more company demanding access to “must-have” programming at a reasonable price.
