AT&T unveils new mobile streaming TV service

Less than a week after closing its $85 billion acquisition of TimeWarner, AT&T has moved to show it means business with regards to offering new streaming TV options for consumers.

On Thursday, AT&T said it is launching Watch TV, a new service for mobile phone customers that will initially stream 31 live TV networks, and 15,000 movies and TV shows on demand. Among the networks available at launch are AMC, CNN, Discovery and TBS. AT&T said it will add six more live networks soon after Watch TV’s launch.

The service can be accessed via a new Watch TV app, or, as AT&T said in a statement, “on select browsers,” and will initially be offered as a free service option with two new AT&T mobile phone plans: AT& T Unlimited & More and AT&T Unlimited & More Premium, which will launch next week.

Under the “Unlimited & More” plan, which starts at $40 amonth for one line, or $70 amonth for up to four lines of service, subscribers will also get a $15 monthly credit toward an AT&T DirecTV Now streaming subscription plan.

The “Unlimited & More

Premium” plan also offers that same $ 15- a- month credit, but that can also be applied to DirecTV or UVerse TV service. The “Premium” plan, which costs $80 a month for one service line, also gives subscribers the option to add channels such as Showtime and HBO, and 15- gigabytes a month of high-speed “tethering” — or, the ability to use a mobile phone to connect another device to the internet.

AT&T also said it will offer Watch TV as a standalone streaming offering for $15 a month soon after the service launches.