NEW YORK — Phone company Verizon began offering a free Netflix streaming subscription on Wednesday to entice customers, joining its rival T-Mobile, which also includes a subscription in many of its plans.
Verizon’s offer is aimed at its home telephony and Internet customers and is part of the launch of a platform called “+play”, in which it centralizes subscriptions to various content companies with the aim of integrating and simplifying their management, according to a statement.
Verizon offers Netflix premium service for one year, which is about $240 in the US, as a requirement for its customers to subscribe to “+play”, which includes other sports-focused subscriptions (NFL+, NBA League Pass) and on entertainment (Platoon).
It is an initiative to become an intermediary between streaming companies and their customers, so that on that platform they can monitor their subscriptions, find new ones, control their costs and get “attractive promotions”.
“We are pleased to officially launch +play in an open beta, giving our customers exclusive access to offerings and tools to manage their growing number of subscription services,” said Erin McPherson, chief content officer at Verizon.
Another of its phone rivals, T-Mobile, offers Netflix subscriptions for free indefinitely — not premium — on most of its “Magenta” plans, though not as part of a centralized platform like the one created by Verizon.
Other companies outside the telecommunications sector have already opted to be intermediaries for streaming companies, such as Amazon, Roku or YouTube, which are themselves content creators.
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