Welcome back to Cheddar news is closing bell in
Manitoba and for kristen Schoeller who has the day
off as more people gravitate to streaming platforms Verizon
is bolstering its arsenal with a new offering.
The telecommunications shine unveiling plus play a platform allowing
users to discover purchase and manage their favorite subscriptions.
All in one place.
Part of the bundle will include netflix,
peloton and Disney plots among many other streaming platforms.
Joining us now is mine own brew let ceo
of Verizon consumer group Menon welcome to the show.
Such a pleasure to have you.
What does plus play bring to the marketplace that we haven't seen before.
I think that you just named it in your introduction.
What we've seen is that more and more consumers
are using digital platform to do many things.
There is a problem fabrication of, of subscription model with any type of industry
and when we asked our customers, we realized that there was a pain point there,
They were losing track of ominous subscription services.
They were, they were paying every month or they still using it.
So we wanted to solve that pain point.
When you think about it, we are the largest,
one of the largest director consumer platform.
We connect over 100 million people every day.
So I think that we were the best suited player to solve that pain point for them.
Who do you consider to be your main competitors in this space?
Like fellow telecommute communications giant A T and
T or other streaming hosts like Roku.
What advantages does plus pay have here.
I think that we connect everyone to everything.
So we don't, we see all those, those platforms, they're not competitors.
We want to aggregate them.
We want to make sure that our customers will
access that portal and then they can have access
to hulu to Disney Plus two pellets on any
type of subscription model that is out there.
It's an easy way for our consumer to manage and to discover new content,
new services.
So we don't see any type of competition.
There were just a facilitator for our customers and for the partners because
when you think about that connecting all those people every day,
we know how to talk to the consumer, we know how to bring them tools.
So some of the partners,
it's not their their forte there in the type
of business they've never managed a customer base before,
so we can help them doing that.
We understand the offering will come at no additional cost to Verizon customers.
So how do you plan on gaining revenue here?
Actually, it's a red share. So all the partners that we carry.
We have a revenue share on subscription. So it's a simple model.
It doesn't put any pressure on the business either because no revenue, no cost.
So we really like that model. It's a simple model.
We try to reinvent reinvent, sorry, the old,
traditional linear tv model here
known how will plus play integrate with products
and solutions that your company already offers Verizon.
Fios Disney plus hulu ESPN plus bundle
actually it's a new portal that any type of customers from Verizon can access.
So it's agnostic of technology.
You can look at it through your big screen, in your living room, through your ipad,
through your portal.
So uh it's your fire subscriber, your mobile subscriber,
you have access to the portal, it's accessible to everyone.
Trials for plus play begin later this month.
A wider launch is expected later in the year.
Can you elaborate on what you'll be looking for during this trial?
I think that we want to make sure that we focus on everything customers need.
So all the functionality,
the search engines and also how do we make sure that
the go through bill is seamless for partners and consumers.
So we really want to make sure that the platform
will be very perfect before we open it for business.
So we're gonna try at the end of demand as you,
as you said with the selected partners and and and customers as well And
employees and then we'll see when we're ready to launch later this year.
We're very excited about that.
I also want to talk about your partnership with metal last week.
What is this involved and how will I help Verizon optimize
the metaverse with of course your 5G network that's launched.
Yeah, I think we're very excited about that, that partnership as well.
I think that what we want to figure out here is how do we bring technology,
how do we make sure that the application go at the edge of the network and that five G.
Can really enable and maximize the metaverse experiences.
So it's really technically here, we want to test the network,
We've been talking about edge computing for a while so we want to amplify that and
we think that we can be a player in the metaverse uh whatever form it takes,
I do want to talk to you about five G.
We know it's a new technology.
Can you tell us about the pace of its rollout for risen this year?
And what are some of the challenges that you guys may have had to overcome?
I think that I'm so proud of about the team, what they've done so far.
It's tremendous. We are over 130 million home covered today.
30 actually 130 million pops but we have 30
million homes that we can connect with 5G home.
And what we plan to do by the end of this year is to reach 175 million people.
So it's a really fast paced rollout
Incredible.
Despite anything about the supply chain everyone is is suffering about,
we've been able to really do great, consumer are really excited about 5G home.
We see a very big potential there so so far. So good, it's very exciting.
The response is great And we hope that consumer will really embrace 5G.
Because it opens so much.
We were just talking about the metaverse that's a
big enabler to that and more to come.
You know,
I think this certainly resonates with so many of your customers because
we all have those streamers and we're not keeping an eye on.
I have about 30 seconds left with um unknown.
But what is the reaction you're getting from consumers here
for? Plus play you're talking about?
Yes.
I think that we've done a lot of research with customers first of all,
they were very excited and we've seen on social media.
The reaction is amazing. So they're waiting for that.
I really believe we're solving a pain point here,
not only for consumer but for partners as well.
So I think that the future is bright and we're very
excited and we cannot wait to to launch the new platform.
Well,
we hope you come back when it's launched
Minoan roulette ceo of Verizon Consumer group.
We really appreciate your time and insight. Thank you so much