{"id":194408,"date":"2017-08-24T12:11:35","date_gmt":"2017-08-24T10:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=194408"},"modified":"2017-08-24T13:27:17","modified_gmt":"2017-08-24T11:27:17","slug":"telkom-unveils-lit-free-music-and-video-streaming-for-freeme-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/194408\/telkom-unveils-lit-free-music-and-video-streaming-for-freeme-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"Telkom unveils LIT &#8211; free music and video streaming for FreeMe customers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Telkom has unveiled LIT, its new media platform that gives Telkom FreeMe contract subscribers free music and video streaming.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a journey that began with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/172938-telkoms-new-contracts-kill-vodacom-and-mtns.html\"><strong>launch of FreeMe<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0last year,\u201d said Attila Vitai, CEO of consumer and mobile at Telkom.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/adsl\/222137-telkom-launches-new-homeunlimited-adsl-and-fibre-prices.html\"><strong>launch of Telkom HOMEunlimited<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0was another step in giving subscribers high-speed data connections with unlimited data, said Vitai.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe 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\u2019ve given them.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">FreeMe streaming<\/h3>\n<p>The free streaming proposition works as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Subscribers on FreeMe 2GB and up will be able to stream music without it counting toward their cap.<\/li>\n<li>Subscribers on FreeMe 5GB and up will be able to stream video for free.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Music services that are zero-rated include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Google Play Music<\/li>\n<li>Apple Music<\/li>\n<li>iTunes<\/li>\n<li>Simfy Africa<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Video streaming services zero-rated as part of the offering are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Netflix<\/li>\n<li>Showmax<\/li>\n<li>YouTube<\/li>\n<li>Google Play Movies<\/li>\n<li>iTunes<\/li>\n<li>DStv Online<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>FreeMe contract customers must still purchase the relevant subscriptions to the media services.<\/p>\n<p>Video streams will be available in 360p standard definition, and traffic will be optimised for that resolution, said Telkom.<\/p>\n<p>Users will also be able to turn off the optimisation and watch videos in a resolution they choose, which will consume their normal data bundle.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Optimisations<\/h3>\n<p>Erna Korff, the head of Telkom\u2019s consumer and mobile product house, said they can zero-rate data on the FreeMe packages thanks to optimisations on the network.<\/p>\n<p>The lower-resolution streams use a third of the data of a typical video stream, while still being suitable quality for viewing on a phone screen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can\u2019t tell the difference on a small screen,\u201d said Korff.<\/p>\n<p>Vitai said the zero-rating of media streaming data on Telkom\u2019s mobile network should accelerate the move away from people fixating on per-minute voice pricing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe staked our claim of being a leading mobile data operator when we launched. We believe this is a game changer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Telkom LIT Music and Telkom LIT Video will be available from 1 September, and qualifying FreeMe contract subscribers will automatically access the service.<\/p>\n<p>Vitai said they already have more content partners in the pipeline and have great ambitions for their media content offerings.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/189974\/telkom-launches-new-uncapped-business-internet-packages\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Telkom launches new uncapped business Internet packages<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Telkom has unveiled LIT, its new media platform that gives Telkom FreeMe contract subscribers free music and video streaming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":194426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[263,65],"class_list":["post-194408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-netflix","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194410,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194408\/revisions\/194410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}