AT&T phasing out STB and Satellites by 2020?
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This thread seems to have a lot of people who don't want to move forward with technology.VoIP is the future and will lead to better choices and better picture quality. Satellite won't go away but will just fade back with old fashioned telephone lines. The new generation will embrace new technology while the old stogies will cling to the past and resist change
to Satelliteguys Z_finigan!Most of the other commenters here are correct; the sat side of DirecTV is going to be here for years to come, and I'll tell you why:
1. As others have noted, DirecTV has not hundreds of millions in sunk costs with sat infrastructure, but billions. One does not simply walk away from such things unless there is something significantly bigger to take advantage of, and OTT is not it;
2. The quotes from actual AT&T execs in such articles mentions that DirecTV customers are the real money-makers for the sat portion of the business. Unless you're phenomenally stupid, you don't cut off recurring revenue, the mother's milk of any business.
Beyond the above, I would fully expect that, by the end of the year, AT&T will have a hybrid sat/stream scenario where they'll use the already-abundantly-deployed Genie DVR for local storage capabilities and then use streaming as a value-add to the local equipment. While I get that AT&T is marketing the beginnings of their streaming services to attract folks to DirecTV programming, rest assured that it's not just for the streaming; it's to get new customers over to the sat side.
Why is this true? Again, as others have pointed out, AT&T's landline footprint is laughably small across the US geography in comparison to sat coverage. Again, only phenomenally stupid decisions would cut that off.
Regarding 4K, I'm going to address this again (as one who has contacts in the industry). Neither the physical nor networking topologies of the 4K format have been worked out yet, and they won't be for a few years. Also, uncompressed 4K requires 12Gpbs for transfer. Also, all local broadcast affiliates are at 720p/1080i at this time; that means they're not even at 1080p level yet, and it requires all new sunk costs in infrastructure just to get to 1080p (this is by no means a software switch to flip!). I could explain more details about this, but have already written a number of posts as to why all of this is what it is.
DirecTV is at the profusely bleeding edge of 4K at this time. Unless you're watching movies or you're seeing replay feeds from the NFL, you're seeing 4K only in closed systems and via uncompressed broadcasts. It's simply not there yet. And if you're going to get a compressed 4K signal, what you're really doing is essentially getting a 1080p-like signal down from the source.
Bringing this back around, this is all to say that there's no way AT&T is going to simply let go of their sat business for the foreseeable future (that includes the next 5 to 10 years
). There's too much at stake to let that side of things go. Will OTT/streaming have an impact? Absolutely -- I already see that with my pre-teen kids who consume >75% of their video content on non-stationary devices!
It simply will coexist with the sat infrastructure.
1. As others have noted, DirecTV has not hundreds of millions in sunk costs with sat infrastructure, but billions. One does not simply walk away from such things unless there is something significantly bigger to take advantage of, and OTT is not it;
2. The quotes from actual AT&T execs in such articles mentions that DirecTV customers are the real money-makers for the sat portion of the business. Unless you're phenomenally stupid, you don't cut off recurring revenue, the mother's milk of any business.
Beyond the above, I would fully expect that, by the end of the year, AT&T will have a hybrid sat/stream scenario where they'll use the already-abundantly-deployed Genie DVR for local storage capabilities and then use streaming as a value-add to the local equipment. While I get that AT&T is marketing the beginnings of their streaming services to attract folks to DirecTV programming, rest assured that it's not just for the streaming; it's to get new customers over to the sat side.
Why is this true? Again, as others have pointed out, AT&T's landline footprint is laughably small across the US geography in comparison to sat coverage. Again, only phenomenally stupid decisions would cut that off.
Regarding 4K, I'm going to address this again (as one who has contacts in the industry). Neither the physical nor networking topologies of the 4K format have been worked out yet, and they won't be for a few years. Also, uncompressed 4K requires 12Gpbs for transfer. Also, all local broadcast affiliates are at 720p/1080i at this time; that means they're not even at 1080p level yet, and it requires all new sunk costs in infrastructure just to get to 1080p (this is by no means a software switch to flip!). I could explain more details about this, but have already written a number of posts as to why all of this is what it is.
DirecTV is at the profusely bleeding edge of 4K at this time. Unless you're watching movies or you're seeing replay feeds from the NFL, you're seeing 4K only in closed systems and via uncompressed broadcasts. It's simply not there yet. And if you're going to get a compressed 4K signal, what you're really doing is essentially getting a 1080p-like signal down from the source.
Bringing this back around, this is all to say that there's no way AT&T is going to simply let go of their sat business for the foreseeable future (that includes the next 5 to 10 years
). There's too much at stake to let that side of things go. Will OTT/streaming have an impact? Absolutely -- I already see that with my pre-teen kids who consume >75% of their video content on non-stationary devices!It simply will coexist with the sat infrastructure.
It's not that, it's about being realistic in the deployment of it. 5G wireless is not deployed in any form yet and only has been lab tested. While it may be viable in the future until any massive rollout or real field trials are conducted, it's all just speculation at this point. I do believe feild trials are happening now so more info my come out soon.
True..but what also may happen is that rather than run fiber to the home..they will run fiber to a wifi hotspot..much cheaper..also may allow cellphones access to that Hotspot and call it 5g...
Sent from my SM-G920V using the SatelliteGuys app!
Didn't Sprint try that with WiMax and then killed it a year later.
We don't have nearly enough bandwidth to do voip or streaming. Data caps and just lack of speed.
How many years out are we from widespread 5g. They are still trying to roll out 4g LTE
This may happen at some point in the future, but 2020 is wayyyyy to soon for any viable total replacement of sat delivered service for a great many people.
I know Verizon is installing something similar in Boston right now..verizon and att have the backbone to support higher download speeds.its the future but it's also happening now
Sent from my SM-G920V using the SatelliteGuys app!
See I have gotten the opposite reaction. I wont say it is better, but I have found vue to be at least as good or comparable to Dish or Directv on pq using the Fire tv box.
Dunno, all I know is I tuned the PS4 and genie to the same channels and swapped back and forth it wasn't even close. Maybe the PS4 sucks...
I did the same thing before I pulled the sat plug. One would think their flagship device would play their service as well if not better than other devices. Who knows
Until we have fiber to every household in America like we have electricity or analog phone service, Directv will not be going to streaming only.
Well, everyone who signs up signed on for 2 years. And if there comes a time when all the sat techs get laid off or have their contracts cancelled nationwide, then there will still be over 700 days left to worry about it
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