Aereo Launching Next Week In Austin
Only days after a federal court in Utah issued an injunction halting Aereo service in six states — and a showdown with broadcasters in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on the horizon — streaming video startup Aereo continues to expand, announcing a launch date and channel lineup for TV viewers in Austin.
In a statement released this morning, Aereo — which collects freely available over-the-air network feeds and then streams them online to paying customers — said it will launch service in the Texas capital and the surrounding area on Monday, March 3.
The 12 counties covered by the service will be: Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Fayette, Gillespie, Hays, Lee, Llano, Mason, Travis and Williamson.
An $8/month subscription gives Austin-area users online access to 19 over-the-air channels, including KVUE (ABC), KXAN (NBC), KEYE (CBS), KTBC (Fox), KNVA (CW) and KLRU (PBS); along with other stations like AccuWeather and Spanish-language channels UniMás, UniVision, Telemundo and Estrella TV. That rate includes 20 hours of cloud-based DVR storage. The $12/month subscription increases that limit to 60 hours.
Aereo is at the center of a legal battle with all of the major networks, who allege that the startup is violating their copyright by retransmitting network feeds without permission and without paying a retransmission fee. Cable providers pay billions each year to the networks for the ability to include broadcast stations in their channel lineups.
In response, Aereo maintains that the way it collects and sends the feeds to users is not the same as cable/satellite retransmission. Aereo uses arrays of very small antennae, with each antenna being dedicated to a single end-user. Thus, contends the company, Aereo is no different than when a consumer places a rooftop antenna on her building; the signal is going through the Internet.
http://consumerist.com/2014/02/24/aereo-launching-next-week-in-austin/