Astro has officially launched its new Ultra Plug & Play Box that offers customers an uninterrupted experience of the best international and local content without a satellite dish. Present at the virtual launch on 22 July were panellists Azlin Arshad, Commercial Director at Astro and Shahrul Imran, Product Engineering Director at Astro.

Astro highlighted the ease of use of its new Ultra Plug & Play Box. The first-of-its-kind offering allows customers to self-install and enjoy the Ultra Box features of Cloud Recording, Play from Start by simply connecting the box to the TV and internet to start enjoying popular shows immediately. Installation is easy with the simple steps in the installation guide video which comes together with the box.

A game-changer for Astro

Launched at a crucial time as Malaysians go through a lockdown and where customers may want to limit installation visits at home, the Ultra Plug & Play Box requires no satellite dish as the Astro content will be streamed over broadband. 

Shahrul told Television Asia Plus, “The game-changer that we tried to do with this product is we enable the streaming technology across all services. Initially, when we launched this box in 2019, we enabled streaming only on VOD services. The delivery, the linear channel, was still going through the traditional satellite delivery.” 

“But with the Ultra Plug & Play Box, we adopt everything into the new streaming technology. The idea is that the linear services or VOD can be streamed over broadband and that’s exactly the game-changer. This is the first time that we enable pure streaming on a single device for both linear and VOD,” Shahrul added.

Meanwhile, Azlin said, “On the commercial side, I think it’s really a game-changer [in terms] of the customer journey.  For 25 years, Astro customers needed to wait for an installer to come into their homes and wait for the installer to install the satellite dish. And now, you’re talking about something that’s shipped out and the customer gets it within 72 hours or we try to do next day delivery. Within 15 minutes of the box arriving in your house, you can start watching and the steps are so simple. 15 minutes to get your Astro is the game-changer for us.”

Ease of use

The new box and the Astro SIM Card will be couriered to customers and each component is packaged with an easy step-by-step instruction guide for installation and activation of the service. In the meantime, while waiting for the Ultra Plug & Play Box to be delivered to their homes, customers can already activate their subscription on the Astro GO app and enjoy all their entitlement with the Astro GO pre-access service.

The Ultra Plug & Play Box is best integrated with Astro & Broadband bundles for greater price advantage and the convenience of an all-in-one bill. New Astro customers can sign up for Super Pack Lite and 100 Mbps internet speed and enjoy rebates up to RM45 per month, while current Super Pack Lite customers can add on 100Mbps broadband at only RM89/month. The activation for the Ultra Plug & Play Box is free for all Broadband customers subscribed to any packs.

Customers with the Ultra Plug & Play Box can enjoy 4K UHD viewing, stream up to 65,000 videos on demand with Cloud Recording, the Play from Start feature, and enjoy the same live TV channels but are now available through a broadband connection. Stream top sporting events such as the Tokyo Olympics 2020, Premier League in 4K HDR quality; the latest Malay dramas Love Elsa and Ratu Ten Pin on Astro RIA, as well as the new Gossip Girl series and Korean drama series, The Devil Judge via On Demand.

The activation for the Ultra Plug & Play Box is also available for FREE for existing customers with a monthly subscription of over RM100.

Pricing information:

Customers can sign-up for the Ultra Plug & Play Box at https://product.astro.com.my/tv or WhatsApp us at 03 9543 3838 and type GET PNP .