Jupiter Telecommunications (JCOM) is seeking to facilitate customers watch cable television programs on various electronic devices with no additional charge starting next year. The company aims to make it possible for users to watch recorded shows outdoors on their mobile phones and PCs, in addition to receiving content directly through an on-demand service.

The company is expected to initially introduce a service in which customers can record TV programs on their cable converter boxes and transmit them within their homes via Wi-Fi networks.

Recently, Jupiter Telecommunications Co. announced that it is launching a flat-rate on-demand TV service allowing subscribers in Japan to watch American programs created by U.S.-based Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. The programming will include "Eleventh Hour," "Southland," "Gossip Girl," "Friends" and "ER."

In a press release, Hiroyuki Nakatani, senior corporate officer of JCOM, said, "We will try a new business model in the pay multi-TV-channel market.”

The Warner service, which starts July 15, will be part of three basic plans that include other cable channels. The monthly rates will run from 4,980 to 5,439. The company's main customers have been family households, but the new on-demand service will also target young people and single households, Nakatani said.

The company ended September with a total of 3.38 million customers, up 4 percent year-on-year. Combined revenue generating units (RGUs) for cable television, internet access and telephony services reached approximately 6.21 million, up 5.9 percent since end-September 2009, and the bundle ratio (average number of services received per subscribing household) increased to 1.84 from 1.81 a year earlier. The company’s television subscriber base stood at 2.632 million in September, up from 2.623 million in September last year. Of the total, 2.615 million are digital television subscribers. The number of internet subscribers went up to 1.666 million from 1.658 million, and the number of telephony customers rose to 1.911 million from 1.895 million a year earlier.

Sujata Garud is a TMCnet freelancer with three years of writing/editing experience and two years of market research experience. As an editor she has covered the IT, electronics, banking, pharma, construction, mining and healthcare industries. To see more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Juliana Kenny