HBO is untethering its customers from their cable televisions, and will launch a stand-alone streaming service next year.

During a meeting for Time Warner investors in New York on Wednesday, the cable network’s chairman and CEO, Richard Plepler, said the service will capitalize on projected growth in the 10 million American homes that have broadband-only TV access.

“That is a large and growing opportunity that should no longer be left untapped. It is time to remove all barriers to those who want HBO,” he said. “So, in 2015, we will launch a stand-alone, over-the-top, HBO service in the United States. We will work with our current partners. And, we will explore models with new partners. All in, there are 80 million homes that do not have HBO and we will use all means at our disposal to go after them.”

The move will put HBO – home to recent TV hits like Silicon Valley (pictured), Girls, and True Detective – in direct competition with Netflix and other streaming services, and gives viewers without a cable subscription a way to access its programming.

Netflix, which considers HBO its main long-term competitor, issued a statement on Wednesday in response to Plepler’s announcement.

“The competition will drive us both to be better. It was inevitable and sensible that they would eventually offer their service as a standalone application. Many people will subscribe to both Netflix and HBO since we have different shows, so we think it is likely we both prosper as consumers move to Internet TV,” Netflix stated in its Q3 earnings report, which is attributed to CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells.

HBO currently offers the streaming app HBO Go to subscribers and has made some of its content available via Amazon Prime, but those offerings have not quelled  demand from viewers who do not have access.

In Canada, Shaw Media and Rogers Media jumped into the streaming game this summer with shomi. The SVOD service, to be run in partnership by the two broadcasters, will debut in November in beta for Rogers and Shaw cable and internet customers. The service recently inked rights deals with Starz Digital Media for TV series like Da Vinci’s Demons and The White Queen, and a separate deal with Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution for the exclusive streaming rights to previous seasons of original FX and FXX series like Sons of Anarchy, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The League.

– From Realscreen with files from Melita Kuburas