Time Warner Cable Offering Free Slingbox Pro-HD To Top-Tier Customers

Time Warner Cable is planning to offer free SlingBox Pro-HD set-top boxes to its customers starting in September. Customers that sign up for Time Warner Cable's $99 per month Wide Internet service will get a $300 rebate for the total cost of the device. A SlingBox set-top box lets users watch their home TV programming from anywhere that they can connect to the internet.

The promotion is seen as a move by Time Warner Cable to spite Viacom in the ongoing legal stalemate between the two companies over Time Warner Cable's TV-streaming iPad app. The cable company launched the iPad app back in March as a way for its cable customers to stream TV programs to their iPads to use the devices like another TV screen. And although it only allowed customers to use the app while in their homes and connected to their Time Warner Cable network, program providers, especially Viacom were adamantly opposed to the service.

Viacom sued Time Warner Cable claiming that the company did not have the rights under its contract to stream its programming via the internet. Viacom has similarly sued Cablevision for an even more advanced iPad app that allowed streaming of channels beyond the home network. This lawsuit, however, has recently been settled.

[via NY Times]