Indicating a further ramp up in its pay TV business, CenturyLink said it ended 2015 with 3.2 million homes enabled for Prism TV, its IP-based service that is currently powered by the Ericsson Mediaroom platform.
During Q4, the telco added 16,000 Prism TV subs, ending the year with 285,000. CenturyLink added more than 190,000 addressable homes for the service in new and existing service areas during the quarter. It has launched Prism TV in markets such as Minneapolis/St. Paul; Seattle; La Crosse and Platteville, Wis.; Columbia and Jefferson City, Mo.; Tallahassee and central and southwest Florida; Las Vegas; central N.C.; Phoenix; Omaha, Neb.; Denver and Colorado Springs, Colo.; Portland; and Salt Lake City.
During its Q4 call on Wednesday, CenturyLink did not provide any additional details about its OTT service trials.
On the data side, CenturyLink lost 22,000 high-speed Internet subs in Q4 due in part to “tighter credit standards” implemented in mid-2015. But it ended the year with about 940,000 addressable GPON homes and 490,000 addressable GPON business locations. CenturyLink, company CEO Glen Post said, now provides speeds of 40 Mbps or higher in north of 30% of its footprint.
CenturyLink CFO Stewart Ewing said the telco is also mulling metered-data plans for broadband, perhaps taking a step closer to policies being tested or implemented by ISPs such as Comcast, AT&T and Suddenlink Communications.
"Regarding the metered data plans, we are considering that for second half of the year," he said. "We think it is important and our competition is using the metered plans today and we think that exploring those starts and trials later this year is our expectation.”
CenturyLink posted Q4 operating revenues of $4.48 billion, up slightly from $4.44 billion in the year-ago period. Broken down further, consumer segment revenues were $1.51 billion, up 1.3%.
The telco also posted net income of $338 million, versus $188 million in the year-ago quarter.
