Aereo is either a brilliant online TV streaming service that could potentially revolutionize the television industry as we know it, or a dastardly thief profiting from what broadcasters claim amounts to stealing their services. The courts haven’t yet decided, but what we do know conclusively is that consumers love the idea of being able to stream all the TV programming they want to their PCs, smartphones and tablets for just $8 per month. For people in the New York area looking to cut the cord and give Aereo a try, however, we have some bad news: The service is now operating at capacity in New York City and can no longer accept new customers.
DSLReports.com’s Karl Bode is a cord cutter and with the Super Bowl and the Olympics both coming up, he decided to finally give Aereo a try. Not so fast — after trying to sign up, the following message popped up on his screen: Thanks for your interest in Aereo! We are currently sold out in New York.
“We’re fortunate that Aereo continues to experience strong growth across all our markets,” an Aereo spokesperson told him. “Our team has been working overtime to add more capacity in our existing markets. As soon as additional capacity is added, new consumers will be notified that they can sign up and create an Aereo account.”
Aereo’s service involves setting up a physical over-the-air antenna in its data center for each and every subscriber it services. As Bode notes, each antenna draws about six watts of power and all those antennas add up to a hefty power bill.
Unfortunately, the company wasn’t able to give any indication as to when more capacity might become available.
