Intel Wants to Offer A La Carte TV Service

Intel is developing a new set-top box TV system that will give customers true a-la-carte service. That would mean customers can pay for exactly the menu of TV channels that they want, rather than having to rely on the pre-packaged bundles currently offered by cable and satellite services. It will also include a cloud-based DVR service. Forbes reports that the system will go into a beta releases for a limited number of customers in March. The system will remain somewhat under-the-radar at the upcoming CES (Consumer Electronics Show), as Intel does not plan on highlighting it during the annual Las Vegas convention.

The technology to pull off this kind of system is not the hard part. Convincing content providers that they should unbundle is going to be the sticking point. Content providers like to have their lesser-known channels as widely available as possible. Peter Kafka from Allthingd.com goes into more details.