CenturyTel and EchoStar Communications announced Thursday a strategic partnership that will allow it to provide CenturyTel | DISH Network satellite television to households in 22 states served by CenturyTel.
The relationship allows CenturyTel to offer customers multi-channel digital TV as part of its full suite of bundled product and service offerings. CenturyTel expects to begin offering its co-branded satellite TV services by the end of the year in a one-bill, one-point-of-contact service.
“Integrating video entertainment services into our product and service bundles offers our customers more choice, value and convenience,” said Glen F. Post, III, CenturyTel chairman and CEO.
“This agreement puts CenturyTel in a strong strategic position to compete with other service providers in our markets and should help drive additional revenue.”
Under this arrangement, CenturyTel will be the primary point of contact for CenturyTel | DISH customers with responsibility for marketing, account management and billing-related inquiries.
Programming, installation and technical support will be handled by a co-branded DISH Network team.
“We’re pleased with this opportunity to provide CenturyTel customers the savings and convenience of a single bill and single point of contact for DISH Network’s all-digital TV and CenturyTel communications services,” said Charles Ergen, chairman and chief executive officer at EchoStar.
“We are also excited about the additional leverage that this partnership gives us in our efforts to educate consumers on the benefits of satellite over cable.”
CenturyTel will market the satellite TV product as CenturyTel | DISH Network, offering CenturyTel customers hundreds of popular, all-digital TV channels including movies, sports, news, music and high-definition TV programming.
The satellite TV product will be part of a bundle that may include local and long distance telephone service, multiple feature offerings and dial-up or high-speed DSL Internet service.
