AT&T is doing something that no other company has done before, and it’s all thanks to its recent acquisition of DirecTV. The only question you have to ask now is: is that “something” worth $200 a month? And how will cable companies respond? And while we’re on the subject of wireless providers, is Apple getting ready to join that industry? GPB sci-tech correspondent Renay San Miguel talks through these stories with Bradley George.

· AT&T announced this week that it would offer up a unique bundle of services, combining mobile phone and TV services for the first time in its history, and at the starting price of $200 a month. What really makes this unique is the fact that this offer is available nationwide starting Aug. 10.

And AT&T can offer this nationwide because it now has DirecTV’s national satellite capabilities within its portfolio, so there’s no slow rollout in specific test markets here while they dig up the ground to lay new fiber-optic lines; it’s available throughout the country next week, and it only cost AT&T $48-point-5 billion dollars to make that happen with the DirecTV acquisition. But lest you think $200 is a tad pricey even if it’s one bill for your mobile phone and TV, that price covers four wireless accounts with 10 gigs of data, and four HDTV connections with DVR capabilities. So it might be very tempting for a family of four, with teens among that family doing lots of Instagramming and texting. The DirecTV acquisition was only officially completed late last month, so it didn’t want to waste any time getting this deal into the hands of potential customers. Especially when you consider that the DirecTV deal includes access to the satellite company’s NFL games, and training camps are underway, football fans. But the real standout here is the national rollout of TV services, since AT&T’s U-verse TV service is only available where the company has landline services.

·What’s really driving a move like this for AT&T? What trends are behind this, and how do we expect its competition to respond?

Don’t be surprised if you see Comcast, Time Warner and other cable companies accelerate their partnership strategies with wireless providers, and maybe they can talk some of them into rolling discounts on actual smartphone purchases into the deal, who knows. Cable and other tech companies offering bundles of services is of course not a new thing –so-called “triple plays” of internet, phone and video have been around since at least the mid-2000’s, with the temptation being one monthly bill for everything. But this is really driven by how much video we’re all watching now on our mobile devices, and all these cable companies trying to add to their portfolio of services. It’s why we’ve seen the explosion of over the top services and apps like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video and HBO Now. It’s why Verizon is reportedly working on its own mobile video network. And it’s why Cablevision this past February started offering up a $10 dollar a month wireless plan, but it’s tied only to WiFi hotspots, it only offers one phone that can take advantage of this, and it’s only in areas that Cablevision serves. So it’s likely that more partnerships are on the horizon.

· The latest rumor involving Apple is actually related to the wireless industry. Apparently it’s not enough for Apple to make one of the most popular smartphones on the market – it also wants to be your carrier as well.

Business Insider reported this week that Apple is thinking about becoming a mobile virtual network operator. (Apple later denied this report). It would lease spectrum space from the existing carrier networks, and so instead of sending your money to AT&T or Verizon, you would send it to Apple to pay for your monthly phone and data charges. Apple’s technology would switch from cell tower to cell tower depending on where your iPhone could access the strongest signal. This plays right into Apple’s long-stated mission of controlling all or most aspects of its technology, both hardware and software, so that it would have more of a say in the kinds of content that you’d have on your iPhones or iPads. The website reported that Apple wants to do this in both the U.S. and Europe but may still be a few years away from doing this. But it’s apparently been in the works since last decade when it first filed for a MVNO patent, so I’m thinking Steve Jobs was aware of this and probably signed off on it. Yes, he was focused like a laser beam on having Apple concentrate on what the company did well, but he was also all about making things easy for the customers, and certainly offering one bill for several services would fall under that strategy.

Tags: AT&T, DirecTV, Sci-Tech Now Georgia, Bradley George, renay san miguel