AT&T plans to move all DirecTV customers to new streaming service

[Marcingak]

The one thing I do not not see brought up here is how many customers they could gain by going net only, all the people that do not want a Dish on their roof, all the Apt./Condos that cannot get line of sight or the buildings do not allow it, HOA that are being a pain in the a$$, dorms ( here in Ann Arbor I have seen DirecTV outside Dorm windows because of Sunday Ticket ).

The gains could be worth the loss of rural customers, that and the $$$ saved by no more Sat TV installs, Satellites in the air, etc, etc.


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Those people can already just get cable or Playstation Vue or Sling TV.

 

[ejb1980]

The one thing I do not not see brought up here is how many customers they could gain by going net only, all the people that do not want a Dish on their roof, all the Apt./Condos that cannot get line of sight or the buildings do not allow it, HOA that are being a pain in the a$$, dorms ( here in Ann Arbor I have seen DirecTV outside Dorm windows because of Sunday Ticket ).

The gains could be worth the loss of rural customers, that and the $$$ saved by no more Sat TV installs, Satellites in the air, etc, etc.


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You bring up a good point. In big cities where LOS and other issues prevent satellite, this is a new way for Directv to get into these places. As long as they don't get rid of satellite dishes for the rest of us, Directv Now is a good alternative for those people. Sure, many of them have cable, but Sunday Ticket will surely lure some new customers. I am sure that Netflix, Sling, and video game consoles (none of which are "real" TV) won't be carrying Sunday Ticket, or even most sports channels anytime soon.

 

[Bruce]

You bring up a good point. In big cities where LOS and other issues prevent satellite, this is a new way for Directv to get into these places. As long as they don't get rid of satellite dishes for the rest of us, Directv Now is a good alternative for those people.

But why do you think they will keep Dishes for the rest of you, there are so much savings involved to get rid of Satellites ( costs are $400-500 million per Satellite including building and launching), no more installers (labor costs), no more manufacturing Dishes, maybe no more manufacturing STBs if they can get a good working virtual one working on Roku type devices, etc, etc.

And this is ATT we are talking about, they are the ones shutting down all copper lines ( land line/ DSL) by 2020, who will that affect, mostly rural customers who cannot get broadband, ATT does not care, they will go where the money is, Urban population is 250 million, rural 60 million.

http://www.telecommonthly.com/2015/01/att-to-abandon-copper-assets-as-part-of-move-to-ip/

https://ask.census.gov/faq.php?id=5000&faqId=5971





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[ejb1980]

60 million people is a lot to continue serving as long as the infrastructure allows.

 

[The Fat Man]

Dumb. Directv Now is dumb. I have Directv NOW (via satellite) and it comes over the top (via my HR44). If it ain't broke don't fix it, but then AT&T gets involved. Mind you Comcast just put a cap on...

That's how AT&T is going to customers locked into multiple services. Comcast will have a cap, so AT&T will get customers to buy their internet, as it will be unlimited and optimized for Directv.

 

[Jimbo]

While I understand what AT&T is attempting to do here, I don't really support it. IMO, AT&T is attempting to make a name for themselves in the streaming marketing, hoping that they survive long term. Look at how many cable TV and cell phone providers there were 15-20 years ago. Now look at how many there are now. Look at how difficult to damn near impossible it would be now this late in the game to start one up. Look at the DBS industry. Primestar, DirecTV, USSB, Alphastar and Dish. Two survived, three didn't. Then Cablevision finally did something with their licences and launched Voom half way into the third quarter of the ball game and they weren't exactly met with success. I think AT&T realizes that it is still early in this whole streaming game, and they don't want to be the Windows Phone of streaming, when companies like Netflix and Hulu start getting bought out, merged or just naturally fail.

Here's my problem with this. Unlike most vocal people on the subject, I do not believe ISPs should just be dumb pipes. I think the internet infrastructure is too weak, too vulnerable and not mature enough to support the demands people want to place on it. I find it humorous and scary how many people put their faith into the internet and then when something happens and they are without it, they are lost. I also find it scary how many people put their connection in the hands of 'the wifi' and think good, reliable ethernet is old fashion. Earth to idiots, somewhere down the line, something is hardwired. I've been looking into getting a CB radio for my car, and was asking the opinion of someone at work about one, and them I mentioned that one day I'd like to get into Ham radio. The dumb millennial in the cubical across from us, who didn't really know what either of those were until we explained it, said 'why use that when there's Facebook now'. I just walked away in awe and sadness. Or people that I know who upload their entire lives to various remote hosting services and don't have local copies and then are board to tears and can't function when the power or worse yet the wifi goes out and they can't access their crap, and they don't want to use their oh so precious cellular data.

I also don't see how AT&T could pull this off in a commercial environment. Sports bars that have NFL Sunday Ticket or the other packages would need at least a few hundred megabit dedicated connection.

I'm still thinking that the Wifi option is just that, an option ... I'm thinking that the Dish based DS* will continue to always be around and wifi streaming will be an option, not the ONLY option.

 

[SpaethCo]

But why do you think they will keep Dishes for the rest of you, there are so much savings involved to get rid of Satellites ( costs are $400-500 million per Satellite including building and launching)

Let's take make the numbers even worse by assuming $600m/satellite with a life span of 10 years. That's $60m/year to be spread across 20 million subscribers, or $0.25 per subscriber per month to cover each satellite. The real numbers are even more favorable than this; 101W is serviced by DirecTV-4S (Launch 11/2001) and DirecTV-8 (Launch 5/2005) and has DirecTV-9S as a spare (launch 10/2006), so we're definitely getting more than 10 years out of each satellite.

no more installers (labor costs), no more manufacturing Dishes, maybe no more manufacturing STBs if they can get a good working virtual one working on Roku type devices, etc, etc.

Replaced by engineering labor costs and OpEx for data centers, servers, advanced software development, etc. Look at the resources that Netflix has poured into things like Chaos Monkey or developing deployment platforms like Spinnaker that require lots of IT engineers making 6 figures.

The key problem with Internet delivery is that the infrastructure scales linearly with the number of simultaneous feeds, so it becomes very difficult to compete with existing broadcast solutions that have per-subscriber costs that drop dramatically at scale. Internet video delivery cost models completely fall apart when simultaneous video feeds exceed a couple million.

 

[noonespecial]

We have had this same thread already.

First install option? Satellite dish
2nd option, if NLOS, or dish not allowed, "directvnow"
Everyone with high speed Internet who has a dish, use directvnow during rain.
Who become the only people who cannot get directv? people with NLOS, And no high speed Internet.
So how do you make EVERYONE a possible customer.... AirGig.

Directvnow is a gap closer, not a dish killer.

That article is click bait, one guy writing an Internet article speculating the inner workings of a multi billion dollar company.

 

[Bodo Fenrirsson]

DirecTV Now WILL NOT Have Skinny Bundles
http://cordcuttersnews.com/directv-now-willl-not-skinny-bundles/

 

[Troch77]

DirecTV Now WILL NOT Have Skinny Bundles
http://cordcuttersnews.com/directv-now-willl-not-skinny-bundles/

I don't remember Directv ever saying they would have" Skinny bundles".

All I've seen was a Streaming package with 100 channels around $50-60 per month.

 

[Zashel]

its interesting that D* killed off its spanish language streaming option. for customers who couldnt have a satellite up.

 

[jailbird]

Frankly, even if there was full coverage there isn't enough backbone in the world to support full time HD + 4K across the board. You'd need a T1 line to every house.

Not to nit-pick, but a T1 is only 1.544Mbps. Even using H.265/HVEC, a 1080p is 5Mbps, so you're not going to be streaming any HD, let alone 4k, over a T1!

 

[chances14]

Not to nit-pick, but a T1 is only 1.544Mbps. Even using H.265/HVEC, a 1080p is 5Mbps, so you're not going to be streaming any HD, let alone 4k, over a T1!

and that's only for one stream. most people have more than one box in their house that they watch tv on at the same time

 

[Jimbo]

Not to nit-pick, but a T1 is only 1.544Mbps. Even using H.265/HVEC, a 1080p is 5Mbps, so you're not going to be streaming any HD, let alone 4k, over a T1!

I thought the same thing when I first saw it, but didn't want to go there.

 

[N5XZS]

You are better off with C-band KU and KA band satellite free to air or pay satellite service! Broadband will not help you on the picture quality plain and simple! Radio wave is your best friend!

 

[EarDemon]

Broadband will also not help you when there are DOS and other cyber attacks. Perfect example, see last Friday.

WWIII will not be fought with tanks and guns on a battlefield, it will be cyber warfare. The more dependent we become on the internet for everything, the more vulnerable we become.