It is understood that Optus is preparing a direct-to-consumer offering where users can pay a subscription fee for live and on-demand matches to be delivered across PC and specifically made apps on various mobile and streaming devices.

The product will be open to users of all carriers, but Optus customers will receive a discount should they wish to subscribe to the service.

However, more than three months since Optus announced it had secured the rights for $63 million per season for the next three years, and six months before the next season begins, details from the telecommunications provider are thin.

It is believed the telco is encountering difficulties with the development of the apps it plans to offer customers, and it is yet to solve the problem of being able to provide the league for pubs and clubs – most of which use Foxtel business and pay a significant premium above what a retail consumer does.

It is thought that Optus is open-minded about working with Foxtel on the Premier League.

Al Jazeera-owned beIN Sports last year secured the rights for the UEFA Champions League, which – along with a number of sports it holds rights to including Spain's La Liga, Germany's Bundesliga and Italy's Serie A football competition – sells directly online to consumers for a monthly or annual fee.

In Australia, Optus partners with Fetch TV for its pay television offering. Optus chief executive Allen Lew has previously declined to comment on whether the English Premier League would be broadcast on Fetch TV set-top boxes, as the two parties are in the process of negotiating a new long-term partnership.

Credibility to strategic objective

However, it is believed that the EPL will be available on Fetch TV, including its coming puck-like device – similar to Apple TV or Telstra TV.

"We've seen how other providers have used the EPL to their advantage in terms of bringing value to their basic carriage service and we think that we can do the same thing here," Mr Lew said. "It gives a lot of credibility to our stated strategic objective of wanting to differentiate ourselves through content," he told Fairfax Media when Optus secured the rights to the league in November.

Singtel, Optus' Singapore-based parent company, holds the broadcast rights to the Premier League in the city state and has done since the beginning of the 2010 season.

Singtel offers the EPL over its cable television offering as well as its Singtel TV Go app for mobile devices, much like current local rights holder Foxtel's Fox Sports does now.

Fox Sports also offers a Premier League on-demand streaming service, but the games are split between live and catch-up. The service has only garnered a few thousand subscribers and has not been heavily marketed.

Industry analysts have suggested that Optus would need to add close to 80,000 customers to break even at an average of $80 revenue per user and 75 per cent drop through.

Telstra, which holds mobile rights to the NRL and AFL, is not believed to have come close to 80,000 subscribers, even when it opened up to customers not with its network.

Last week, Optus signed a new deal with subscription video on-demand service Stan, which is 50-50 owned by Nine Entertainment Co and Fairfax Media – publisher of The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age – offering Optus customers a three-month bonus subscription and making all of the streamed content on the platform un-metered.