Vodafone starts paid live TV service for mobile subscribers

Vodafone mobile subscribers can watch live TV via the TV Anywhere app. The provider announced this on Thursday. All subscribers with a Red or Smart subscription get the option for 4.95 euros per month.

With TV Anywhere, customers can watch twelve channels, namely NPO 1, 2 and 3, RTL 4, 5, 7 and 8 and SBS 6 and 9, Veronica, Fox and Xite. Watching TV works via 3g, 4g and wifi. It does not matter whether users are on their own WiFi network or elsewhere.

Users can add accounts from Twitter and Facebook and then share or ‘like’ things. Liking does not happen on Facebook, but in the app itself. If a user has liked a moment on TV, friends can watch the fragment in the app.

Users can specify in the settings how high the quality should be: Low, Normal, High and HD, with 150, 300, 1500 and 2500kbit/s respectively. The app does not automatically downscale the quality if the stream is over a 3g or 4g connection. However, the app warns if the user starts a stream via a mobile connection. The streams run via the normal internet connection and not via TV standard LTE Broadcast.

The app has been available in the App Store and Play Store since last week as an update for Vodafone TV. You can log in via a regular My Vodafone account. The service is also available to Vodafone Thuis customers. Then the option is free of charge and there are also seventeen channels available.