Samsung Electronics is upping its bet on the free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) business, adding entertainment and news content and creating new owned-and-operated content for users of Samsung TV Plus on the company's smart TVs and other devices.

Originally launched in 2015, the Samsung TV Plus platform now offers viewers more than 220 channels in the U.S. and 1,600 channels globally, including over 50 O&Os. Those channels are now available on Samsung Family Hub refrigerators in the U.S. and Korea, in addition to TV and mobile devices.

Samsung TV Plus is also getting an image makeover with a new logo that will be used as part of a global branding campaign.

With streaming subscription services proliferating and monthly fees rising, more cord-cutters and other viewers are looking for lower-price, ad supported ways to get the shows they want to watch and FAST viewing has been booming. The percentage of U.S. TV watchers using FAST services was up 9 points to 55% in the first five months of 2022, according to Hub Entertainment Research.

Also: Samsung Adds More Streaming Channels to Samsung TV Plus

“As an early player in the free ad-supported streaming TV space with unrivaled expertise across hardware, software and services at a truly global scale, Samsung TV Plus has become a top viewing destination for consumers around the globe,” said Won-Jin Lee, president and head of the service business team at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung TV Plus’s new brand signifies our continued investment into the future of FAST.”

Samsung said it has augmented its content relationships with A+E Networks, E.W. Scripps Co. and BBC Studios.

The Samsung TV Plus lineup now includes four BBC channels -- BBC Home, BBC Food, classic Doctor Who and Antiques Roadshow U.K. episodes -- and Scripps’s Ion broadcast network, now available via streaming. Home, decor, style and food programming will appear on the Home Made Nation channel.

Additional news programming has also been added to the platform, including channels from ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. Other national news providers include Cheddar News and Telemundo. Samsung TV Plus is also expanding its atlas of local news offerings, which now cover 40 markets.

Samsung is also building more exclusive O&O channels under Andy Singer, who joined the company as head of content for Samsung TV Plus. This fall Samsung will fire up Ride or Drive, the first automobile channel to launch on the platform. Samsung Showcase will feature concerts, events and specials.

The platform is also looking to provide exclusive premiere events. One example is an uncut version of Demi Lovato’s Vevo Official Live Performance. Also coming to Samsung is a first look at Estrella TV’s mockumentary Norteados con Don Cheto.

In addition to expanding its array of channels, Samsung TV Plus has plans to double its VOD library in 2023, including films from Lionsgate.

Samsung will be rolling out its new branding starting Tuesday. The logo features a TV screen, but unlike some older logos, does not have rabbit ears atop the set.

“Our new look, programming and partnerships come at a time when many consumers are overwhelmed by a myriad of monthly bills and subscriptions. We are proud not only to manufacture quality devices, but ones that provide additional value through instant and free access to entertainment spanning movies, music, news, art, gaming, health and more,” said Sang Kim, senior VP of product and marketing, Samsung Electronics.

The rebrand was led by UK-based brand agency Dixon Baxi and is based on the Samsung TV Plus cross-device experience, the company said. ■

Samsung said its indoor 5G router has been awarded the FCC stamp, following earlier authorization of the vendor’s 5G access units and 5G-based home router.  

The latest approval give the green light to Verizon’s current 5G portfolio as it gears up to play a role in Verizon’s coming 5G-based fixed wireless services launches, starting with a rollout in Sacramento, Calif., in the second half of 2018.  

RELATED: Samsung Gets a Piece of Verizon’s 5G Action  

Verizon is also working with Ericsson for a 5G-based rollout in select markets as the company looks to deploy residential 5G broadband services in as many as five markets later this year.  

RELATED: Verizon Picks Ericsson for Pre-Standard 5G Rollout 

Samsung introduced its commercial 5G-based fixed wireless access platform earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, noting then that the equipment was already involved in several field trials in multiple markets. Verizon and Samsung have teamed on 5G trials in parts of California, Georgia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas, and Washington, D.C. 

Speaking on Verizon’s recent Q1 earnings call, Matthew Ellis, Verizon’s EVP and CFO, said Verizon had completed its pre-commercial trials, demonstrating propagation over 2,000 feet from the node using millimeter wave spectrum. 

Samsung Electronics is using this week’s Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona to trot out “commercial” gear for 5G-powered fixed wireless access services.

Samsung’s 5G FWA portfolio includes 5G home routers for indoor and outdoor use; a 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) comprised of a radio access unit and virtualized RAN; a next-generation core; and “AI-powered”  3D radio frequency planning tools and services.

Samsung noted that its 5G-facing product set has already undergone months of field trials in multiple markets, and announced that the FCC granted authorization of the vendor’s 5G access units on February 23.

Samsung expects its 5G platform to be deployed commercially in 2018 in the U.S.  

Verizon has already announced it will use Samsung gear for commercial 5G-based fixed wireless services, starting with a deployment in Sacramento, Calif., in the second half of the year.

At the event, Samsung said it is also showing off its first 3GPP Release 15-complaint 5G NR products supporting spectrum bands below and above 6GHz.

Shedding more light on Charter Communications’s wireless activity, the MSO and Samsung Electronics announced Tuesday that they are working together on 5G and 4G LTE lab and field trials in various U.S. locations.

They said the 5G trial is trying out fixed use cases that use Samsung’s pre-commercial 28 GHz (mmWave) system and devices, while the 4G trials are running at 3.5 GHz (CBRS, licensed spectrum), using Samsung’s small cell technology in an outdoor environment to evaluate mobile use cases, they said.

RELATED: Charter Adds Wireless Exec Manish Jindal

Charter, which has activated its MVNO agreement with Verizon Communications, announced some details about its 5G test ambitions in February, noting then that it would possibly launch a mobile/wireless product in 2018.

Charter applied for experimental licenses to test 5G late last year. RCR Wireless News reported earlier this year that Charter was also working with Ericsson for 5G trials scoped out in Florida.

RELATED: Charter Eyes 5G, Wireless Offerings

Samsung said it’s one of the companies selected by Charter and the company progresses towards its MVNO launch sometime next year.

“We are pleased to collaborate with Samsung on these trials, which provide Charter better insight into how our advanced, powered,  high speed network—which currently passes 49 million homes and businesses—can be used to enable 5G services,” Craig Cowden, SVP, wireless technology at Charter, said in a statement. “In addition, as we move closer to the launch of a Spectrum wireless service in 2018, our work with Samsung on trials of 4G small cell technology will support our overall wireless strategy.”

“As a pioneer in small cell networks technologies, Samsung is excited to partner with Charter as they evaluate their next-generation 5G and 4G wireless network technologies,” added Mark Louison, SVP and General Manager, Networks, Samsung Electronics America. “These projects, with communications leaders such as Charter, will continue to lay the foundation for future business models and customer applications that tap the full potential of both 4G LTE and 5G.”

Samsung and Charter timed the announcement with this week’s Mobile World Congress Americas show in San Francisco.

Samsung also introduced a new small cell product portfolio for home, enterprise and outdoor service scenarios that will support CBRS (up to 150 MHz of shared spectrum in 3.5 GHz), Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), as well as a cloud managed service for deployment of small cell products.

Samsung Electronics is committing $1.2 billion to U.S. research and project support for Internet of Things ventures during the next four years, seeking to accelerate development of IoT projects ranging from smart cities and consumer services to industrial and healthcare initiatives.  

At a Washington symposium on Tuesday (June 21), Samsung vice chairman/CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon also unveiled the "National IoT Strategy Dialogue," a consortium of technology companies that will address the upcoming Department of Commerce IoT proceeding and the pending "Developing Innovation and Growing the Internet of Things" (DIGIT) Act in Congress. Intel is the initial co-founder, and the Information Technology Industry Council will manage the "Strategy Dialogue" advocacy group, which will seek additional members from the technology and communications sectors.

At the Samsung-sponsored “Internet of Things – Transforming the Future” conferenceKwon urged that IoT advocates put a priority on "technologies that connect each other." He urged that organizations should “start talking and thinking differently about IoT,” recommending greater concentration on "a human-centered approach, embracing the life-changing possibilities of the technology."

At the well-attended event, government and technology leaders offered a variety of perspectives on the evolving IoT infrastructure, which many expect will find its first major acceptance in enterprise and industrial applications, including "smart city" ventures -- a topic that many cable operators, along with other telecom providers -- are exploring.  

Speakers also examined IoT initiatives that will affect aging, education, agriculture, autonomous vehicles and other proposed application. But they also acknowledged that the coming years will generate IoT ventures that are as-of-yet unimaginable.

Alan Davidson, director of Digital Economy and senior advisor to Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, confirmed that an IoT policy "green paper" will be posted by autumn.

"We've seen something  that is a confluence of both technical capabilities and business imperatives and demand ... that will be qualitatively different," said Davison, who was formerly a top Google lobbyist in Washington. "We're very excited about what's going to happen [in] industrial IoT," he added, emphasizing that the "policy issues are a little less fraught" than in consumer applications. He added that he expects internal Commerce Department units will adopt IoT technologies quickly for uses in census, weather and other services, citing IoT's "ubiquity of connectivity."

Like many other speakers, Davidson emphasized the privacy and security hurdles in IoT.

"A lot of the bedrocks of our privacy approach are challenged in this area," he said, citing as an example "devices where people cannot click on a privacy notice. We'll have to be clever and innovative on how we give consumers notice and how we use data."  

Davidson also said that policy will look at "field upgradability."

"Do consumers even know that this is something that have to do?" he asked rhetorically. "It is challenging the traditional notions. We've asked a lot about [security]... We're keenly interested in these issues. It will be a big part of a paper we'll  put out in the fall."

Issa Challenges Spectrum Issues in IoT Rollout

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) focused on the wireless appetite of the growing IoT ecosystem and warned that current spectrum policy is not prepared for the onslaught.

"For the IoT to do what the Internet did, government has to recognize it's outgrown them," said Issa, a co-founder of the Congressional Internet Caucus and  chairman of the House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet.

"Government has been selling spectrum as a way of doing business and promoting business," he said. "We take billions of dollars from companies and we say we're doing them a favor ... when what we're really doing is balancing the budget on a hidden tax. Worse than a tax, it's a one-time sale."

"The Internet is available to all of us because we did not sell the spectrum of the Internet," Issa said. Citing unlicensed spectrum availability, Issa proposed that "every other bit of spectrum in a non-interferenced [sic] process ... needs to be opened up.

"Government needs to say that no spectrum is off-limits as long as it does not interfere with existing ... obligations. When those run out ... government [should] create almost unlimited unlicensed space. ...  That's the future of the IoT," Issa said.

"Those of us who care about the IoT going beyond anything described here ...  need to realize that infinite bandwidth available everywhere and monetized by self-interest  rather than by exclusive license is the future of the IoT," he emphasized. "Everybody pays their own way by creating/innovating a new product... that opens a greater connectivity to other products."