DirecTV has a new owner as of yesterday, as AT&T bought the satelite TV giant for $48.5 billion.
As the Associated Press reports,
“With 5.7 million U-verse TV customers and 20.3 million DirecTV customers in the U.S., the combined AT&T-DirecTV would serve 26 million. That would make it the second-largest pay TV operator behind a combined Comcast-Time Warner Cable, which would serve 30 million under a $45 billion merger proposed in February.
‘What it does is it gives us the pieces to fulfill a vision we’ve had for a couple of years – the ability to take premium content and deliver it across multiple points: your smartphone, tablet, television or laptop,’ AT&T’s Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said on a conference call with journalists Sunday.”
The deal calls for DirecTV to continue to to offer standalone service for 3 years; then, AT&T would offer standalone internet service for at least three years afterwards. AT&T plans to expand high-speed internet to an additional 15 million homes in 4 years from its current 70 million subscribers.
The deal is expected to close within twelve months.
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