Satellite TV service provider Dish Network has started permitting its customers to pay bills with cryptocurrency Bitcoin, the company announced today.
Dish doesn’t have a wide range of products like online retail stores, nor does its TV service business scale beyond the U.S., which means it’s very likely there won’t be a ton of people rushing to pay with Bitcoin. The move to offer such payments was likely done more from a marketing perspective, as it makes Dish looks far more progressive than cable TV competitors that can’t even manage to offer decent customer service calls, *ahemcomcast*. (Hell, even the press release spends more time plugging a documentary about a couple that tries to exclusively use the cryptocurrency than it does on why Dish decided to start accepting it.)
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The company teamed up with Coinbase to process Bitcoin transactions. Right now, Dish customers can only make one-time payments via mydish.com, but automated payments with credit or debit cards are also still an option.
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