Citizens Fiber upgrades UX with MobiTV Connect

Tuesday, March 13th, 2018
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Citizens Fiber Upgrades User Experience with MobiTV Connect™, Offering App-Based Cable Option for Pay TV Subscribers

  • First Time in Company History Subscribers Have the Option to Access Pay TV Services through Citizens Fiber-branded Application, Spanning Popular Consumer Devices

MAMMOTH, Pa. & EMERYVILLE, Calif. — Citizens Fiber, an Internet, cable TV, and telephone provider, and MobiTV, an industry innovator in IP-based video delivery solutions, announced today that Citizens Fiber has adopted the MobiTV Connect™ Platform to deliver app-based Pay TV services. This initiative is the first step for Citizens Fiber to significantly upgrade its user experience and utilize popular consumer devices, while cutting hardware costs.

Citizens Fiber, located in southwest Pennsylvania, will begin its largest expansion in company history outside of its current rural area and into the cities of Latrobe and Greensburg later this year. Deploying the MobiTV Connect platform will be a distinguishing factor to help the Company retain existing subscribers and attract new customers in these expansion areas. Additionally, Citizens Fiber will initially test the platform with a select group of beta users before deploying the solution across its full user base, later this Spring.

“We know app-based delivery is the future of television,” says Zach Cutrell, Operations Manager at Citizens Fiber. “The partnership with MobiTV has been a healthy and beneficial relationship since day one. Their vision for where the industry is headed, attention to detail, and willingness to work with a provider of our size has been a breath of fresh air. They engineered a solution that allowed us to share costs of the necessary cross-country circuit and streaming server with another progressive thinking fiber company outside of Pittsburgh; Hickory Telephone Company. Being able to share these costs, having our own distinct customer facing applications in the App stores, and not outlaying a significant investment has been a game changer for both companies.”

Citizens Fiber has 3,500 unique subscribers across all services. The Company will utilize the MobiTV Connect Platform to transition its network’s video delivery system to an extendable IP-based approach that includes on-demand, live TV, catch-up TV, network DVR, and recommendations. The SaaS-based platform allows for real-time enablement of new technologies such as 4K/HEVC, Cloud DVR, replay TV, and robust voice control – without the high cost of constantly replacing legacy set-top boxes in the home. Customers will simply download the app and view television on any of their connected devices.

“We view IP-based TV solutions as a booster rather than a barrier to the future of television,” says Charlie Nooney, CEO and Chairman of MobiTV. “We now live within a rich device ecosystem where delivery of Pay TV services on multiple devices is now common place. MobiTV provides a solution that adjusts to a variety of connection environments (wired vs wireless) while making it simple to customize an experience for the end user, and the interchange of content simple for the operator.”