AT&T Says Users Can Watch TV on Any Device With Its New Bundle, the First of Its Kind

Walk out the door and watch TV anywhere.

That’s the pitch AT&T is making for its new nationwide offering, the first of its kind, that combines television and wireless phone service for $200 a month for the first 12 months.

The announcement of this package, available to customers starting Aug. 10, came a little more than a week after AT&T closed its $48.5 billion takeover of satellite company DirecTV, forming the country’s largest television distributor, with about 26 million subscribers.

Executives promoted the merger — which combines one of the country’s largest telephone and Internet providers with the country’s largest satellite provider — as the creation of a next-generation entertainment provider that would serve customers who increasingly demand on-the-go entertainment across a variety of screens.

AT&T is doubling down on the television business at a time when it is facing significant disruption. A wave of so-called cord cutters are abandoning their traditional cable and satellite service in favor of often cheaper streaming alternatives. At the same time, a number of television groups like HBO, Showtime and CBS are introducing new stand-alone video on demand streaming services that do not require a traditional pay-TV subscription.

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