Unexpected price increases, terms of service that change with no warning, and a gradual sense that you're paying more and more but getting nothing extra: the same complaints that led many to cut the cord are starting to crop up again, only this time around on-demand services. Indeed, it's not been a great week for cord-cutters trying to be frugal with their home entertainment.
DirecTV NOW is getting an unexpected price increase, with the streaming service rising $5 per month across its tiers. Subscribers of the AT&T owned service were warned of the increase via email over the weekend, with the changes happening in roughly a month's time.
Earlier this month, AT&T announced plans to launch its own live streaming television service called WatchTV. The service offers a relatively small number of channels, but at a low-cost rate that undercuts all other OTT services currently available. WatchTV is now available for customers with certain devices, including the Apple TV.
AT&T has quietly increased a certain fee it charges its wireless customers, it has been revealed. Called an "admin fee," the wireless carrier is now charging more than double its original rate, though no big announcements about it were made and many customers are unlikely to notice the increase on their billing invoices.
AT&T has announced the upcoming launch of WatchTV, its new live television streaming service. The platform, which offers more than 30 livestreaming TV channels, will be included with a pair of unlimited plans set to roll out next week. Called Unlimited & More and Unlimited & More Premium, both include unlimited high-speed data with extra perks tossed in.
Our smartphones have practically become extensions of our bodies and lives, holding the keys not just to our captured memories but, often, also to online accounts and even money. Most users take for granted how much of our data we let companies access through our smartphones but, sometimes, the long arm of the law does finally catch up with the times. Responding to inquiries by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore), AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon all pledged to stop selling phone location data to data brokers. That promise, however, comes with a big “but”.
It’s the inevitable conclusion to an acquisition years in the making, especially after a US court gave its thumbs up. AT&T has just proudly announced that it has, at long last, completed its acquisition of Time Warner. This practically puts one of the US’ biggest entertainment companies into the hands of one of the country’s biggest telecom companies, creating a media giant that AT&T’s rivals will have a hard time toppling.
In a massively controversial decision, US District Judge Richard Leon has ruled that AT&T can acquire Time Warner, and do so without any conditions placed on it. This was the biggest antitrust case in many years, potentially paving the way for similar deals among other companies. Now that the ruling has been made, we may soon see the fallout: sources say Comcast is preparing to make a move on Fox.
Right after AT&T suggested they had exclusive access to the LG V35 ThinQ, Google weighed in with a different message. According to Google, Project Fi also has the LG V35 ThinQ, and the LG G7 ThinQ too - and also the Motorola-made Moto G6. That's three new devices for Project Fi, all at the same time.
![AT&T gets LG V35 ThinQ after skipping G7 [Updated]](https://c.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/LG-V35-ThinQ-04-1-980x620.jpg)
The new LG V35 ThinQ will launch on AT&T in early June in the US, the carrier has confirmed, helping explain why it opted out of picking up the LG G7 ThinQ earlier this month. The new smartphone, latest in the company's V series, is closer to the G7 than the name would suggest, however.
Amazon has made some rather odd devices in the past, from the terrible flop that was the Fire Phone to the suspicious fashionista Echo Look. But one strange product that seems to have somewhat survived is the Dash button. A one-click device primarily designed to make it easy for Amazon users to order one type of product, the Dash concept seems to have had some fans over at AT&T. The carrier has just launched its own LTE-M Button which can do more than just order Tide pods.
There's a device called RED Hydrogen One out in the universe that we need to have a talk about. This is a smartphone from the folks at RED, a company best known for their cinema-friendly high-end video cameras. We've seen this smartphone - parts of it anyway - earlier this year, but without a whole lot of deep detail, it's suddenly popped up on Verizon and AT&T. What the heck?