ISP BT Preps UK Pay TV Relaunch with New WiFi Set Top Box

Credible sources have informed ISPreview.co.uk that BT’s retail UK broadband ISP division plans to relaunch their Pay TV (IPTV) service early next year alongside a new WiFi equipped Set-Top-Box (STB), as well as some additional content (e.g. NOW TV, Britbox and Disney+) and new service features.

At present the best STB that BT TV offers is their Ultra HD (4K) equipped YouView box (Humax DTR-T4000), although like so many other PVR-capable (Personal Video Recorder) devices on the YouView+ platform it lacks WiFi and can only be connected via a wired Ethernet (LAN) cable to your broadband router. The DTR-T4000 also lacks High Dynamic Range (HDR) support (bit of an oversight since BT Sport can do HDR).

The good news is that BT appears to be gearing up for a relaunch of their Pay TV platform, which will take place around early 2020 (likely to be officially announced around December 2019) and this will be complemented by a new STB. At this stage we don’t know if this will also be a Humax built YouView+ box, although it appears to have many of the same features and so our assumption is that they will be retained.

The new box will include support for 4K and HDR video content, as well as Dolby Atmos sound. Crucially though they’ve also added the ability to connect the box via WiFi (a very long overdue but welcome feature) and you’ll still be able to record two channels while watching a third.

On top of that BT will also add a Bluetooth remote control, integration with Amazon / Netflix / YouTube etc. and in the future a new content sharing feature via app to a second box. As previously reported, BT’s deal with Sky means that NOW TV is also coming to the new box and we understand there are plans to potentially include Britbox and Disney+ when they launch (or possibly a little later).

The addition of Disney+ is likely to be quite attractive given all of the Marvel, Star Wars movies and new TV shows that are currently being developed for it. However at this stage there’s no information on how much all of this will cost, what ports will be on the new STB or what sort of bundles will be offered.