Telkom LIT is a new service whereby customers can stream movies and music – without using their data.
From 1 September, mobile users who buy a 2Mbps FreeMe package on post-paid will get access to LIT Music, and can download as much music as they want from content partners — for free.
“So you could spend hours listening to music for free,” says Atilla Vitai, CEO of Telkom Consumer.
When they buy a 5Mbps bundle, customers will have access to LIT Video as well, and will not use data to access movies from partner content suppliers.
For LIT Video, Telkom has partnered with Showmax, Netflix, YouTube and Google Play. For Lit Music, partners are Google Play Music, Apple Music and Simfy Africa.
“This innovation is aimed at really transforming the way South Africans consume digital entertainment. By removing the worry of additional data costs we are putting unlimited entertainment in the hands of our consumers,” Vitai says.
Content providers’ subscription costs are not included in the free bundle, but can be deducted directly from the customers’ Telkom account through a reverse carrier billing option with some content providers.
Telkom has also announced the imminent launch LIT TV, offering Unlimited ADSL, Fibre and LTE SmartBroadband customers the Telkom LIT TVC 100 media box which allows customers to transform their TV into a smart TV, with pre-loaded content channels from our content providers.
Vitai explains that this set-top box, that can be used via a smartphone, aggregates over-the-top content.
“It is a state of the art set-top box that we will be giving away for free,” says.
LIT TV includes a media streaming box and is designed for large screen TVs offering a completely new TV viewing experience.
The Android TV device allows consumers to truly customise their TV viewing, marking a break away from linear TV viewing. The current content partners for LIT TV are ShowMax, YouTube, DSTV and Google PlayStore.
Customers will be able to choose what they want to watch both from our subscription based partners as well as a host of free content options from the Google Play Store allowing them to design a personalised entertainment hub.
Devices powered by Android TV have Chromecast built-in so users can cast their entertainment apps to their TV.
Telkom’s LIT TVC 100 media box is both Google certified and approved by the Independent Communication’s Authority of South Africa.
Mahir Sahin, head of Africa: Android platform partnerships at Google, says: “We are very thrilled to see Telkom launching the first Android TV certified set-top box in South Africa with our popular services like YouTube and Google Play built-in. Google Play will bring the world of content, apps and games to Telkom subscribers’ living room.”
The device is compatible with Android and IOS, so the user’s smartphone can be used as a keypad or voice-enabled remote control for the streaming box. “Customers can also search for a particular topic and the box has built-in intelligence to aggregate content from all the content channels related to the search topic.,” Vitai says.
Telkom LIT is not a special promotion, Vitai explains, but is a new service available from Telkom. “This is another first: it is a revolutionary service available only from Telkom.”
“We think we will enhance this in the coming months,” he adds. “These are for post-paid customers now, but we will look at how we can extend them to pre-paid customers.”
Vitai adds that the new service follows other moves by Telkom to offer customers better services.
“Last year, we revolutionised the mobile industry by launching FreeMe, giving South Africans access to data at a cost that was previously unimaginable. This year, we launched Unlimited Home, giving fixed-line consumers unlimited data and higher speeds,” he says.
“We have already focused on disrupting the data market. Now, we are upping our game to provide our customers with a compelling proposition for all the data we’ve given them. Our LIT offer enables South Africans to access world-class, on demand, streaming content, without incurring additional data costs. We believe this is a game changer.”
