Comcast TV Everywhere Goes Live Next Month, Free for Subscribers

Comcast has done little to win our hearts over, but we must begrudgingly admit that their TV Everywhere plan is a very diplomatic way to appease those who want to watch TV shows online whenever they want. So what makes this plan from a notoriously hard-headed company so reasonable? It comes at no additional cost. It’s amazing how the word free can smooth over so many problems.

Comcast’s Amy Banse gave a bunch of details about TV Everywhere in a NewTeeVee Live interview. She revealed that TV Everywhere will launch next month and will be free to anyone with a current Comcast subscription. Customers can authorize up to three devices per household and download the special player that streams content directly from Comcast. Additionally, this works no matter where you are as long as you are on an authorized device. Presumably you wouldn’t be packing your home PC around, but your laptop should be able to stream shows anywhere there’s a connection available.

There are a few disappointments. All this streaming counts against the 250GB monthly cap that Comcast puts on your internet usage, and nothing was mentioned about HD content (probably because that would eat through your allotted 250GB even faster). However, giving an additional free service for a subscription you already have is a remarkably nice thing for Comcast to do, and even the 3-device limit per household is generous enough to meet the needs of most families.

This is exactly the kind of thing we didn’t expect from Comcast, but it’s definitely the right way to compete with Hulu and YouTube, where millions of people flock to watch shows for free already.

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