The netTALK company, known in the past for low-cost phone service, has unveiled it’s netTALK TV at CES. And they are making some big claims for it, which, if delivered, would be a huge deal in the media market. They claim:
an ultra-low cost digital TV solution to address an over-priced, underwhelming cable TV market
They want to replace your cable company with a la carte channels provided through netTALK. That’s something that people have talking about for a while now – the ability pick and choose only those channels you want and not have pay for a package that contains a bunch channels you will never watch.
It will work by combining with existing DUO, a product that provides telephone service of an internet connection. When the two devices are combined they provide both telephone and TV over you internet connection. The box provides standard and high-definition TV with HDMI Out, S Video Out, Composite Video, Ethernet and WiFi.
They are shooting for Q3 2011 release and no prices are available yet. But, I have some serious questions about how they plan to pull this off. There seems to be lots of promises and little about details. Content deals with the TV networks seem far-fetched at this point. They are only marginally more interested in a-la-carte than cable providers are. After these big network companies own multiple channels and they know that some of them are unpopular, but they force providers to carry all of them or risk losing the big ones that users want. So, we shall see what is delivered later this year.