Beginning March 16, Altice USA said it will offer homes within its footprint with K-12 and/or college students free broadband service for up to 60 days to keep those who may be displaced due to school closures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Altice USA will offer its 30 Megabit-per-second Altice Advantage high-speed data service to qualifying homes without internet access within its footprint. The cable operator joins other cable operators like Charter Communications and Comcast who have enacted similar programs to help customers during work and school closures to prevent spreading the virus. Starting Monday, March 16, 2020, eligible households interested in this high-speed data service can call:

• 866-200-9522 to enroll in Optimum region
• 888-633-0030 to enroll in Suddenlink region

In addition, Altice USA has joined the Keep Americans Connected Pledge recently announced by Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai. As part of the pledge, Altice USA has committed for the next 60 days to:

• not terminate broadband and voice service to any residential or small business customers because of their inability to pay their bills due to the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic;

• waive any late fees that any residential or small business customers incur because of their economic circumstances related to the coronavirus pandemic; and

• open its WiFi hotspots to any American who needs them.

“We know that our connectivity services, especially broadband and voice, are essential for fostering learning for students, powering our local businesses, and keeping our communities connected,” Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said in a press release. “Altice USA is proud to do its part in ensuring that customers and businesses in our service areas have reliable access to the connectivity services that are critically important during this rapidly evolving public health situation.”

Altice USA has announced that Amazon Prime Video will soon natively integrated into the cable operator's advanced video platform, Altice One.

According to the cable company, the integration will roll out in the coming months. 

With the integration, the 400,000 Altice One users will be able to access Amazon Prime SVOD content through their native user interface, and use voice control features, alongside previously integrated apps including Netflix and YouTube.

Related: Altice One Burns the Churn

“From Altice One to Altice Amplify, we are simplifying the entertainment and connectivity experience for our customers to bring them the content and features that matter most to them, all in one place,” said Hakim Boubazine, Altice USA co-president and chief operating officer.

Added Andrew Bennett, head of worldwide business development for Amazon Prime Video. “Prime Video is committed to making streaming on demand and live entertainment as convenient as possible for our customers. We are excited to work with Altice to give Prime members another convenient way to access their favorite Amazon Originals, purchase new-release shows and movies, or customize their entertainment lineup with Prime Video Channels.”

Less than one month after announcing it would shutter its own Fios1 local news operations, Verizon Communications and Altice USA have struck a partnership that will bring the cable company’s News 12, i24News and Cheddar news programming to Fios TV customers over the next year, beginning in November.

Verizon said in mid-August that it would shutter its local news division on Nov.16. With the Altice USA partnership, Fios customers will gain access to News 12 in November, followed by content from i24News and Cheddar in 2020.

“We’re all about choice for our customers, and these channel additions bring our customers even more options for robust news and hyperlocal offerings on the Fios channel lineup," Verizon head of content strategy Erin McPherson said in a press release.

News 12 will be available on Channel 535HD in Long Island, the Lower Hudson Valley and New Jersey. Early next year, additional markets will launch in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Connecticut and the Hudson Valley. Verizon customers can also tune in to News 12+, which features quick stories, cultural bites and exclusive originals with weather and commuter updates.

Early next year, Fios customers will get access to i24News, the global current affairs news network, and Cheddar, the digital-first business news network focused on the most innovative products, technologies and services transforming our lives.

Altice purchased Cheddar in April, consolidating its news operations into a single unit -- Altice News -- headed by Cheddar founder and CEO Jon Steinberg.

“Emmy-award winning News 12 is a leading, trusted hyperlocal news brand in the New York Tri-State area, and we’re excited to make News 12 as well as Cheddar and i24NEWS available to Fios customers as we continue to advance Altice as a leader in hyperlocal, national, business and international news,” Steinberg said in a press release.

Video, after all, really just doesn’t matter.

Cable operators, who have spent the better part of the past two decades trying to stem the rapid loss of video customers have abandoned the chase, instead opting to retain higher margin broadband customers. And according to a report by influential media analyst Craig Moffett, principal and senior analyst at MoffettNathanson, it is about time.

Related: Moffett: Video Just Doesn’t Matter 

By focusing on broadband and pretty much letting video customers churn if they want to -- the days of calling your cable company, threatening to leave and getting a free month of HBO to stay are over -- cable operators have seen overall profit margins soar. Companies that had struggled to reach 30% margins while carrying a full load of video services are now approaching 50% overall margins. And Moffett says that is mainly because they are no longer fretting over losing video customers, or offering unprofitable promotions to get them to stay in the bundle.

Nowhere is this more evident than with Cable One, a pioneer among broadband-focused cable companies. Now called Sparklight to emphasize that switch, Cable One’s margins are the highest in the industry -- 47.8%. At Altice USA, which was formed after European telco Altice N.V. purchased Suddenlink and Cablevision Systems, margins have risen substantially from the 30% range before the purchase to more than 40%.

Related: Cable One's Approach Clicks with Investors

“Video subscriber losses are now part of the bull case. In conversation after conversation, investors talk of faster subscriber losses as a clear positive,” Moffett wrote.

Moffett isn't the first to say this. BTIG’s Rich Greenfield has for years touted the allure of over-the-top providers and encouraged cable operators to give up on traditional video distribution. 

Moffett and other analysts have hesitated to go all the way out on that limb in the past because of the belief that the bundle of video and data was a powerful tool against the competition. But now, with households getting younger and cord cutting becoming more prevalent, the notion of forcing customers to take a service they don’t want and that loses money for the provider, seems ludicrous.

The math has always been relatively simple. Customers that drop video service but continue to be broadband subscribers pay more for the standalone service -- meaning higher monthly revenue and profit margins for the operator -- and dropping video means lower costs to the operator for repair, maintenance and customer service. Video service traditionally requires more truck rolls and gets more complaints than broadband, Moffett wrote.

That should equal higher profits, but according to Moffett it hasn’t reached the scale where it shows up in financial reports. Until now.

“The change in tone among the major cable operators has been extraordinary,” Moffett wrote. “A year ago, Charter and Comcast were still largely wedded to defending video, even if it meant losing money. Both companies have now made it clear that they won’t continue to chase low value video customers.”

Moffett added that video churn, the main culprit of the cable “bear” case, has gone from feared, to accepted and most recently, to encouraged.

The analyst cautioned that cable isn’t abandoning video -- for operators like Comcast, video is as important as ever -- but more and more are becoming “increasingly comfortable letting video find its own level,” with older customers opting for fuller video packages and younger ones willing to pay more for a robust broadband service only.

Investors are beginning to see the light too, Moffett wrote.

“Just a few years ago, video subscriber losses were the foundation of the cable bear case,” Moffett wrote. “Gradually, that fear faded. Video subscriber losses became something that investors were willing to ignore. Now, it’s something investors are hoping for.”

That is beginning to translate into higher stock prices and multiples. While the sector has performed well this year -- cable distribution stocks were up about 40% in the first half -- it could get even better. Moffett argues that higher margins mean higher multiples and reaching the 50% margin level could bode very well for cable stocks.

Related: Investors Connect with Cable Broadband Strength 

Moffett estimated that at 40% margins, cable cash flow multiples would be about 9.6 times. At 45% margins, average multiples rise to about 10.3 times and at 50% margins, they grow to 10.8 times. Factor in the lower capital intensity associated with fewer video customers -- lower programming costs and fewer set-top boxes -- and multiples rise to 11.7% at a 50% margin.

Understandably, the picture is not as bright for programmers. While virtual MVPDs and other OTT players could theoretically absorb nearly all of the traditional video customer losses, Moffett adds that it is more likely that they capture a fraction of the declines.

“There’s simply no good way to spin the story for programmers like Comcast’s NBCU cable networks, or AT&T’s Turner networks,” Moffett wrote, adding that the complexity is probably why Comcast has underperformed its peers while outperforming the general market.

“But Charter and Altice USA are cleaner stories,” Moffett continued. “And their shares have performed markedly better, even after considering their higher leverage levels.”

Can a pay TV operator with less than 5 million subscribers make it in today’s video business?

As this chart compiled by equity research company Cowen reveals, scale certainly means a lot. For Altice USA, which finished the first quarter with just under 3.3 million video customers, programming costs consume 80% of total revenue. 

UPDATE:Altice USA said Cowen's tally of $813 million for first-quarter program licensing costs is actually the wrong figure. The correct figure, according to the cable operator, of $682.4 million puts Altice largely in line with other tier 1 pay TV operators at 67% of video revenue. But the chart still shows the impact of subscriber scale on programming costs.  

For Comcast, which finished Q1 with around 21.8 million video customers, program licensing accounts for about 60% of revenue.

Below Comcast, Charter Communications and Dish Network—which finished Q1 with 16.4 million and 9.6 million video subscribers, respectively—pay 65% of their revenue in programming costs.

Related: Montana Provider to Pull Plug on Video

Notably, it’s still going up for everyone.

According to Cowen, programming costs represented 73% of revenue in the first quarter of 2016. The figure was around 53% for Comcast at that time.

J.P. Morgan media analyst Phil Cusick rekindled the once-old argument that Charter Communications should buy Altice USA in a research note Thursday, telling clients that the regulatory climate may never be better for a mega-deal.

Charter and Altice USA have obvious synergies -- Altice USA’s New York area footprint abuts Charter’s Manhattan market and its Suddenlink operations are nearby Charter systems in the Midwest. Charter chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge is familiar with the systems, having served as chief operating officer of Cablevision Systems (which Altice bought in 2015) for a decade before he resigned in 2011.  Overall, a deal seems like a no-brainer.

So far, investors took the report in stride -- both stocks didn’t move much in early trading Thursday, with Altice USA stock down 1.6% to $22.75 per share in afternoon trading and Charter down 0.3% to $344.33 each.

Altice USA’s parent Altice N.V. even mulled buying Charter a few years ago,  but pulled back on a deal when Sprint parent Softbank, which had been rumored to be considering its own Charter deal, focused on a merger with wireless giant T-Mobile instead.

Cusick, citing Rutledge’s public statements -- he has said countless times how much he loves the cable business, but that there aren’t any good buying opportunities available -- said a deal would not only consolidate the New York metro area, but it would create the largest residential broadband provider in the country with about 28 million subscribers, surpassing Comcast’s 21 million residential broadband customers. Charter also would get a stronger foothold in secondary markets toward the center of the country with Suddenlink, which is becoming Altice USA’s biggest growth area.

Charter could get Altice USA relatively cheaply, the analyst added. He suggested a $30 per share takeout price -- representing a 30% premium to Altice USA’s closing price of $23.13 per share on April 3 and an 8.8 times cash flow multiple. He estimated that a merger would present about $600 million in annual synergies off the bat -- nearly half of that from an estimated 10% reduction in Altice USA’s programming costs -- adding it could grow to as much as $2.7 billion after Altice USA’s already aggressive cost-cutting measures are considered.

Cusick added that while Charter could cut costs on its own, “we believe the Altice influence would make management much more aggressive and pull savings forward.”

The analyst doesn’t expect Charter to pay Altice a premium based on those cost-cutting opportunities, but added that “Altice might look at them as further upside to the combined equity, and investors might look at them as upside in a deal announcement depending on how many management or board seats Altice came out with.”

According to Cusick, Charter could structure a cash and stock deal -- $6 per share in cash and $24 in stock -- and still maintain its 4.5 times leverage ratio with $105 billion in combined debt.

Charter should be able to skirt the regulatory issues that sprang up when Comcast attempted to purchase Time Warner Cable in 2015. A combined Charter-Altice would cover 59.6 million households — 50% of the TV homes in the country and above the 57.8 million homes covered by Comcast, but still swell under the 78 million homes that Comcast-TWC would have reached.

Charter-Altice also would fall below the theoretical 30% video ownership cap at 22%, though together they would total about 30% of broadband subscribers in the U.S.

“Under the current administration and FCC, we believe the size of the potential deal ($40 billion EV) and resulting footprint would likely be approved, especially if the companies were willing to expand on Charter’s commitment to broadband expansion over time,” Cusick wrote. “2020 could be a tougher year to get approval though because of the political overtones, and some Democratic Party candidates have talked about market concentration as an election issue—this could make a 2020 approval harder and 2021 a non-starter if some Democratic candidates come out on top.”

While U.S. cable operators and their investors remain transfixed on penetration of the broadband market, and seizing market share, it is expansion of the overall market through household growth that is an important and overlooked part of the narrative.

So say the analysts of MoffetNathanson, who closely tie the Wall Street fortunes of Comcast, Charter Communications, Altice USA and other publicly traded U.S. cable companies to broadband growth.

U.S. cable stocks outperformed the S&P from the beginning of 2013 to the end of 2016 based on acceleration of growth in their broadband subscriber ranks. These stocks lagged, however, in 2017 through the first half of 2018, as cable broadband growth decelerated.

Cable stocks have rebounded to some degree as broadband growth has, “improbably” according to MoffettNathanson, reaccelerated.

“One cannot overestimate the importance of this development,” the firm said. “The overall growth rate of the residential broadband market slowed from about 3.7% in Q3 2016 to just 2.3% in Q1 2018, as new penetration gains slowed. Since then, overall market growth has reaccelerated to almost 3%. All of that acceleration can be attributed to acceleration in nw household formation.”

In the third quarter of 2018, the top seven U.S. cable operators, Comcast, Charter, Cox, Altice, Mediacom, WideOpenWest and Cable One, add over 728,000 subscribers, compared to just over 538,000 in the third quarter of 2017, according to Leichtman Research Group. Comparing the same timespan, the top telco operators lost slightly less wireline broadband (around 150,000 in Q3 2018 vs. 156,000 in Q3 2017). This suggests the acceleration of growth came from somewhere else besides poaching marketshare form the likes of AT&T and Verizon.

Unfortunately for cable executives and the investors also looking to better understand their business, household formation is “terribly frustrating” to track, MoffettNathanson conceded, with metrics often delayed and contradictory, and also varying based on region.

The metric is closely tied to unemployment—think millennials finally finding well-paying jobs, moving out of their parents’ homes, getting their own place and subscribing to cable broadband. 

Alice USA has announced the first operating system upgrade to its year-old Altice One platform.

Among its added functionality, Altice One 2.0 will enable users to watch cloud DVR content on the go using the Altice One mobile app. It will integrate YouTube Kids alongside other streaming services—notably YouTube and Netflix—already embedded into the platform.

Related: Altice USA Unveils ‘Altice One’

The upgrade will expand the availability of 4K content, including Premier League soccer, which will now be available on channel 200.

Remote control voice search will be enabled for the YouTube app. And the show restart feature will be expanded to 20 additional channels, including A&E, History Channel, Lifetime, Viceland, Fox News, Fox Sports 1, FX and National Geographic. Show restart lets users bounce back to the beginning of any enabled program. 

Altice USA said during its third quarter earnings call earlier this month that the initial deployment of Altice One is complete, including expansion across the Suddenlink footprint. Altice said it’s now available across 80% of its overall footprint.

The company said about 200,000 of its customers are using the Altice One platform currently.

“Altice One has transformed the way our customers connect to the content they love by simplifying their entertainment experience and providing expansive WiFi coverage to power their homes,” said Hakim Boubazine, co-president and chief operating officer, Altice USA, in a statement. “OS 2.0 gives Altice One families new features to enjoy such as enhanced mobility with on-the-go Cloud DVR, more streaming apps, enhanced voice search, and more 4K content, and is just the latest update as we continue to evolve the Altice One experience for our customers.”

Cox Communications is the only major U.S. cable operator to enter into the FCC’s first auction of spectrum devoted to next-generation 5G services.

The privately held, Atlanta-based cable operator, the third-biggest U.S. MSO, is bidding for licenses in the 28 Gigahertz auction, set for Nov. 14, along with Dish Network, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Windstream and other telecom companies.

Dish, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Windstream and Frontier Communications are among the companies bidding for 28 GHz licenses in the FCC’s so-called “millimeter-wave” auction.

Notably absent are Comcast, Charter Communications and Altice USA, which have all expressed interest in participating in telecom’s ongoing wireless convergence in some form or another.

(Lists of the auction filers can be found here.)

Related: FCC Votes to Put More Broadband Spectrum in Play

The FCC is conducting its first-ever auction of high-frequency airwaves suitable for next-generation 5G wireless services. The airwaves being auctioned exist mostly in rural areas, with the largest available market being Honolulu, according to Morgan Stanley. The auction covers about a quarter of the U.S. airwaves. 

Comcast and Charter are mostly situated in metropolitan and suburban markets, although Altice has footprint in rural regions through its Suddenlink Communications purchase.

In a May FCC filing, Charter asked the FCC to wait to open the application window for the 24-GHz band auction until the 28 GHz auction was completed.  Charter reasoned that those companies that satisfied their spectrum needs in the 28 GHz auction (aka Auction 101) might want to demure on the 24 GHz auction (Auction 102).

But the No. 2 U.S. operator seemed to indicate that it would participate in the bidding.

“Charter is particularly excited about the opportunities presented with this high-band spectrum and is exploring how to use it to deliver ultra-fast, high-capacity services to consumers in communities across the country — large and small, as well as urban, suburban and rural,” the operator said in its filing.

However, Charter and Comcast have seemed more focused on the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service band (CBRS), as well as the 3.7-4.2 GHz band, also known as the lower C-band.

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress Americas event in Los Angeles last month, Charter senior vice president of wireless technology Craig Cowden said, “I do think millimeter wave has some propagation issues that will limit its effectiveness in terms of a true mobility layer.”

The wireless industry’s much ballyhooed threat to the cable connectivity business saw its leading edge roll out this week, with Verizon releasing the key details of its big 5G launch.

Let’s just say that Comcast, Charter and the rest of the cable industry don’t appear to be running for their lives, at least not yet.

Verizon’s new fixed wireless service, dubbed “Verizon 5G Home,” will debut October 1, priced at $50 a month for Verizon mobile users and $70 a month standalone, with taxes, fees, installation and equipment costs included in the price. Users can cancel anytime.

The deployment, which will start out in Los Angeles, Houston, Indianapolis and Sacramento, will be fueled by some decent promotion—users get the first three months free, and the service comes packaged with three free months of YouTube TV, along with an Apple TV 4K or Google Chromecast Extra.

Speeds, however, are not transcendental. Verizon promises peak speeds of nearly 1 Gbps, but cautions that users “should expect typical network speeds around 300 Mbps.” This comes as most large and mid-sized cable operators are offering speeds of 940 Mbps downstream.

This week, for example, Alice USA launched the leading edge of its FTTH service in Long Island, delivering 940 Mbps symmetrically for $80 a month unbundled.

There are some cumbersome elements to Verizon’s launch, as well. The No. 1 U.S. wireless company wants to be first out of the 5G gate so badly, that it’s launching its service with professionally installed customer premises equipment built around its proprietary G TF standard.

Soon, when its vendors upgrade their hardware and software to the 3Gpp 5G NR standard, Verizon will have to turn around and upgrade everyone’s hardware, software, chipsets and devices to that technology, truck rolls included.

“I don’t see anything about 5G that ever makes it comparable to DOCSIS 3.1 or DOCSIS 3.1 Full Duplex, or any capability we have through fixed line service,” Charter Communications CFO Chris Winfrey speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference earlier this month. 

Altice USA today said that the first wave of symmetrical gigabit-speed fiber-to-the-home deployments have launched in select parts of Long Island.

According to an Altice press rep, the cable operator is delivering 940 Mbps upstream/940 Mbps downstream service, priced at $79.99 a month unbundled, to a select group of Long Islanders.

Altice didn't disclose what parts of its Long Island Optimum footprint the FTTH services are available in.

Related: Altice USA to Skip DOCSIS 3.1, Roll Out All-Fiber Network

Alice also said that it’s enhancing DOCSIS 3.0-powered HFC speeds in its Optimum footprint to 400 Mbps, with gigabit speeds scheduled to be available over HFC in 2019.

"Altice USA is focused on offering the best network and connectivity experience, and the activation of our full-fiber network with smart WiFi, the most advanced of its kind in the nation, demonstrates our commitment to creating converged customer experiences,” said Hakim Boubazine, Altice USA co-president and chief operating officer, in a statement. “Delivering our symmetrical Altice Gigabit fiber service is just the start as we continue to scale our fiber network to bring our customers up to 10 gigabit internet speeds to support the explosive growth of data usage while laying the groundwork for the future of the connected universe.”

Alice USA announced in November 2016 that it would eschew DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades across Optimum in favor of a five-year, FTTH deployment plan. 

Altice USA has asked the FCC to let it conduct CBRS trials in Jonesboro, Ark. beginning Sept. 1.

According to the filing, Alice would like to conduct indoor and outdoor tests using prototype small cells and equipment from vendors including Ericsson, Nokia, Airspan Networks, Arris’ Ruckus Networks and Berkeley Varitronics Systems. According to Altice’s “special temporary authority” application, the operator would like use its 3.5GHz band trials to “evaluate propagation, capacity and mobility characteristics.”

Related: Altice USA Eyes CBRS Small Cell Strategy

Alice USA, Comcast and Charter Communications are all looking at the potential of small cell networks that utilize the emerging CBRS (Citizens Band Radio Service) shared spectrum band.

In April, Altice USA issued a request for information on CBRS small cell products, along with a request for proposal on a multi-phase trial.

As reported by Multichannel News in May, Altice USA believes it is well positioned to build a small network in part to its access to low-cost sites and a workforce that could be trained to install and maintain the new small cell network.

Tied to Altice USA’s CBRS effort, the operator is building out network infrastructure for its MVNO deal with Sprint. Altice expects to launch a mobile service based on this relationship next year.

Speaking to investors two weeks ago for Altice USA’s Q2 earnings report, CEO Dexter Goei talked about the ongoing “densification of Sprint’s network,” as well as upgrades and expansion of Altice’s Wi-Fi network.

“We are also testing CBRS spectrum with equipment in a 3.5 gigahertz band as this may be good complementary capacity for us,” Goei said.

Last month, the FCC announced that it will begin on Sept. 10 accepting initial commercial deployment proposals for CBRS.

The FCC has also conditionally approved a group of Spectrum Access System (SAS) administrators, which include Google, Sony, Amdocs, CommScope and Federated Wireless.

While Comcast and Charter Communications have enjoyed a close partnership for their respective mobile business, sharing everything from merchandising plans to backend technology, their appear to be limits as to just how much Altice USA can collaborate with the two biggest U.S. cable companies in regards to its own MVNO business.

“Ours is a facility based. Theirs is a light MVNO, which makes it a little bit difficult today to cooperate specifically around infrastructure,” said Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei, during his company’s second quarter earnings report.

Related: Comcast, Charter Form Mobile Platform Partnership

“We clearly can cooperate around whether it be marketing, cross-marketing, maybe some supplier acquisition stuff,” Goei said. “But as you know, we are so active globally as a group, and we've maintained very good relationships on a global level with the key suppliers, that we've been able to go ahead and do a lot of this stuff on our own. But I don't ever eliminate the possibilities or the attractiveness of teaming up with our friends from Charter and Comcast on anything relating to that.”

Last year, Altice USA announced an MVNO partnership with Sprint. The cable operator said it will deploy a mobile service built around the deal in 2019.

Related: Altice USA, Sprint Strike ‘Full’ MVNO Deal

“We have a full infrastructure-based MVNO, which has attractive economics and flexibility features for us,” Goei said. “We have a dedicated and experienced mobile management team which will lead the development, launch and ongoing mobile strategy. In terms of network development the densification of Sprint's network, which we're helping with our AirStrand deployment is comfortably ahead of schedule as are the upgrades to and expansion of our WiFi network. We are also testing CBRS spectrum with equipment in a 3.5 gigahertz band as this may be good complementary capacity for us.”

Add Altice USA to the mix of pay TV providers that are offering 2018 World Cup games in the pixel-packed 4K format.  

Altice USA said the majority of World Cup matches will be offered in 4K on channel 200. Subs will need a 4K TV as well as the MSO’s recently launched Altice One all-services box. That device is available in Altice USA’s Optimum footprint (formerly Cablevision Systems) and is starting to make its way into the Suddenlink service footprint.  

RELATED: World Cup 2018 Sets Stage for Video Tech Showcase

Speaking on the company’s Q1 call in early May, CEO Dexter Goei estimated that about 100,000 subs in the Optimum footprint are on the Altice One platform, with 80% of video gross adds connected to the new device on a daily basis.  

RELATED: Altice USA Unveils ‘Altice One’ 

 Altice One users will also be able to call up World Cup features and coverage with the device’s integrated voice remote.  

Additionally, all World Cup matches on Fox and FS1 in HD will also be restart-enabled, meaning they can be accessed even if they aren’t being recorded.  

Among other U.S. MVPDs, DirecTV, Layer3 TV and Dish Network are also offering live World Cup matches in 4K, or in 4K and HDR.

As part of its update, DirecTV said it will deliver the 4K HDR feeds on channel 105 and 106. DirecTV is also offering a four-day free preview of “marquee” FS1 content, including six World Cup matches, to subs who don’t currently get that network in their subscription packages.