At&t's future plan for Satellite service?

[EarDemon]

I live in a rural area, and I wouldn't change it for anything! Cellular coverage doesn't really exist in my town. Verizon has 1 tower here, which barley covers my house, depending on what room I'm in. Sprint, my provider, has one tower in the town north of me, and one tower in the town south of me. They are roughly 4.5 miles away in their respective directions. Last time I knew, AT&Ts coverage was nearly nonexistent, and I don't expect much from little Magenta. My cell phone signal is limited to ~-98 dBm of Sprint LTE in my bathroom, where it drops to 3G and then quickly to a very low signal roaming onto Verizon as I move through out the house.

Time Warner has done an excellent job here. I've had 60Mb internet for 5 or 6 years now, with 120Mb being made recently available last month. Just waiting for the new Charter packages to come out in a few months to upgrade.

I do next to zero internet streaming for video. When the next cyber attack comes along and knocks out these streaming services, I will smile as I turn on my DirecTV receiver. I love my 'horse and buggy' way of doing things!

 

[SpaethCo]

What's the key selling point to DirecTV NOW, PS Vue, or Sling TV today? Cost.

It's not viewing on any device - you can get 95% of the way there today with authorized TV Everywhere apps and or DirecTV's own mobile app (including portable DVR content).

For quality on streaming it's a mixed bag. The quality can be equal or even exceed satellite broadcast quality, but not consistently. Just look at the DirecTV NOW thread for all the people reporting problems. Same thing occasionally with Vue, or Sling. Notable failure points are peak load events like major sporting events or airing of popular TV shows.

One thing that I don't see mentioned is a problem inherent to Internet CDN delivery of video: delay. It still take a long time to get a master feed, transcode it into various bitrates, and distribute that to all your CDN cache endpoints for broader viewing. Right now it doesn't matter which platform you pick (Vue, DTVN, Sling, or even MLB.tv, NHL.tv, etc) you are 45-60 seconds behind the actual live broadcast. For anyone who wants to participate in social media while watching the same event, that's a bit of a problem. This will get better over time, of course, but it still need to be a 45x-60x improvement just to get back to even with the delay we have today with space-based distribution.

So about that cost thing. Let's look at those 2015 Q2 DirecTV numbers again. If you look at the costs tied to revenue (which excludes advertising, subscriber acquisition costs, customer upgrade costs, admin expenses, loan amortization, asset depreciation) their costs break down like this:

Programming costs (ie, the costs of the channels) $3,780m (84% of total cost)
Subscriber support (call centers, service calls, etc) $596m (13% of total cost)
Broadcast operation expenses $118m (3% of total cost)

Total direct expense: $4494m

The cost is in the content, not the distribution; moving things to the Internet isn't a way to make this substantially cheaper. So how are companies like Dish, Sony, and ATT selling their streaming product so much cheaper right now? Most likely they have escalator pricing in place where they pay continually higher rates as their subscriber numbers grow. This party will eventually end and pricing will equalize.

So that brings up the question - if cable, satellite, and Internet streaming options were all priced exactly the same, which one would you pick? (assume the imperfections and limitations of each option remain the same: satellite impacted by weather, cable having limited HD capacity in some areas, and Internet streaming being inconsistent in experience)

 

[Jimbo]

So that brings up the question - if cable, satellite, and Internet streaming options were all priced exactly the same, which one would you pick? (assume the imperfections and limitations of each option remain the same: satellite impacted by weather, cable having limited HD capacity in some areas, and Internet streaming being inconsistent in experience)

To answer this question, the one that gives me the best Picture, Picture Quality for me is number 1, followed by the Programming I require.

For Me, that is still D* via Sat ...

 

[Ronnie-]

For me, even if pricing were the same, after using streaming delivered live tv, I'd still pick that. No install, I can use a variety of equipment, and no rain fade.


Granted rain fade is not a huge issue most of the time, but it always seems to happen during a game or something I am wanting to watch. Sure, my Internet could go down and give me the same issue, but as it is now, my net is rock solid. I've had two outages in the 4 years I've had my current provider. One was a county wide outage when someone cut the fiber line, and one was a modem outage. Both were fixed fairly quickly.

Adding in the substantial cost savings that I have now, and for me the choice is easy to make.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

 

[texasbrit]

I have uverse internet, theoretically 15/2, but performance is incredibly unreliable. Sometimes I get as high as 22Mbps, but at other times it drops as low as 2-3Mbps. Certainly I can't get through a 2 hour move without the movie stalling at least two or three times.

 

[Ronnie-]

I have uverse internet, theoretically 15/2, but performance is incredibly unreliable. Sometimes I get as high as 22Mbps, but at other times it drops as low as 2-3Mbps. Certainly I can't get through a 2 hour move without the movie stalling at least two or three times.

I would have that checked out, as obviously something is wrong.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

[SpaethCo]

For me, even if pricing were the same, after using streaming delivered live tv, I'd still pick that. No install, I can use a variety of equipment, and no rain fade.

I'm with you on the equipment front -- that's honestly the biggest thing that annoys me about any of the cable / satellite companies. I like that DirecTV can provide me HD feeds of every single NHL game as part of their center ice package, but I hate that I can only view that content through their POS receivers that demand a fee for providing you with a barely acceptable user experience.

I wish they had a Plex-like solution. I don't want to hook a Genie receiver up to my TVs, I want to hook a Genie receiver up to my network and use a DirecTV app on any device in my house to play video from it. They're already half way there with the Genie client/server model, and they had this mostly working years ago with DirecTV2PC. Apple, Amazon, Roku, and Google can iterate technology for streaming devices way faster than DirecTV - continuing to develop user interfaces for underpowered and stupidly expensive set-top boxes is wasted effort for DirecTV engineers.

 

[Jimbo]

I'm with you on the equipment front -- that's honestly the biggest thing that annoys me about any of the cable / satellite companies. I like that DirecTV can provide me HD feeds of every single NHL game as part of their center ice package, but I hate that I can only view that content through their POS receivers that demand a fee for providing you with a barely acceptable user experience.

I wish they had a Plex-like solution. I don't want to hook a Genie receiver up to my TVs, I want to hook a Genie receiver up to my network and use a DirecTV app on any device in my house to play video from it. They're already half way there with the Genie client/server model, and they had this mostly working years ago with DirecTV2PC. Apple, Amazon, Roku, and Google can iterate technology for streaming devices way faster than DirecTV - continuing to develop user interfaces for underpowered and stupidly expensive set-top boxes is wasted effort for DirecTV engineers.

I really like my Genie ...
It would be nice if we could have more than one on the account, but thats another story.

Genie is Not a POS as you put it.
Oh yes, D* should do as all the other streaming companies are .... WHY ?
D* is NOT a Streaming company, they are a TV Provider company, via Sat delivered service ...
You don't like it, there are now plenty of other options, USE ONE.

I love it when someone jumps in and says this and that is terrible ... if ya don't like it, WHY DO YOU HAVE IT ?

Its Really easy to move on from.

 

[Juan]

I really like my Genie ...
It would be nice if we could have more than one on the account, but thats another story.

Genie is Not a POS as you put it.
Oh yes, D* should do as all the other streaming companies are .... WHY ?
D* is NOT a Streaming company, they are a TV Provider company, via Sat delivered service ...
You don't like it, there are now plenty of other options, USE ONE.

I love it when someone jumps in and says this and that is terrible ... if ya don't like it, WHY DO YOU HAVE IT ?

Its Really easy to move on from.

Sorry..but ATT wants to be a streaming company..whatever is cheaper with the highest profit potential..they bought Directv for the customer base...who knows..maybe they will stream phone service too

Sent from my SM-G920V using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[SpaethCo]

Oh yes, D* should do as all the other streaming companies are .... WHY ?

Because they are already broadcasting a signal of digital HD video at my roof 24x7. If I want to watch TV on my iPad in my home office, why the heck should I have to go all the way out to the Internet to get another feed? If my DirecTV box can receive that content, why can't it just stream directly to my iPad?

D* is NOT a Streaming company, they are a TV Provider company, via Sat delivered service ...

Technically, IP network streaming is how the Genie and whole-home DVR work. The Genie streams to the clients, and back when you could still get supported video cards you could run DIrecTV2PC on a Windows machine connected to your network and watch absolutely perfect crystal clear HD video on a computer streamed over the network from your DVR.

You don't like it, there are now plenty of other options, USE ONE.... if ya don't like it, WHY DO YOU HAVE IT ?

I switched to DirecTV from Dish because I got sick of watching hockey games in SD. DirecTV was (and I think still is?) the only place where I can subscribe to NHL Center Ice and get all of the games in HD. Dish was worse back in 2010 when they had part-time RSNs, but I think they still don't get the Canadian feeds in HD (DirecTV does). Comcast allocates a whole 2 channels worth of HD to Center Ice.

Right now DirecTV offers the programming I want, so I have to use their equipment and pay $7 to lease one of their boxes for every TV after the first one. I want them to continue to sell me content, deliver it to my house from space, but allow me to view that content on any device on my home network.

 

[Soccernut]

Picture quality, content at a fair price is my priority. Satellite has a good picture quality but I'm not happy with having to pay extra for HD and HD boxes, come on HD is now standard video delivery!
As far as streaming I like Netflix and Amazon for quality, price and reliability, but some other services I tried are unreliable specialy on fast moving sports.
I hope that streaming will be able to keep up with technology like 4k sports in a reliable and cost effective way.
I have DIRECTV and ATT internet service 50/5 mbps, Roku3 box.

 

[Jw2016]

Picture quality, content at a fair price is my priority. Satellite has a good picture quality but I'm not happy with having to pay extra for HD and HD boxes, come on HD is now standard video delivery!
As far as streaming I like Netflix and Amazon for quality, price and reliability, but some other services I tried are unreliable specialy on fast moving sports.
I hope that streaming will be able to keep up with technology like 4k sports in a reliable and cost effective way.
I have DIRECTV and ATT internet service 50/5 mbps, Roku3 box.

I still don't understand why boxing or UFC PPV's have a cost difference for HD and SD. Just charge one price, they probably just take the HD feed and down convert it to SD anyway. It's not like HD is new, it 's pretty much the norm now, so why are people being charged more for the HD version?. And your right, why are we paying extra for HD boxes or the stupid HD programming fees. HD receivers can be configured to output a signal in 4x3 480i for those old tv sets still out there so stop manufacturing SD only receivers but still support the existing ones for people who have no intention of wanting HD. Does DISH have the same dual prices for boxing or UFC events?.

 

[Jimbo]

I still don't understand why boxing or UFC PPV's have a cost difference for HD and SD. Just charge one price, they probably just take the HD feed and down convert it to SD anyway. It's not like HD is new, it 's pretty much the norm now, so why are people being charged more for the HD version?. And your right, why are we paying extra for HD boxes or the stupid HD programming fees. HD receivers can be configured to output a signal in 4x3 480i for those old tv sets still out there so stop manufacturing SD only receivers but still support the existing ones for people who have no intention of wanting HD. Does DISH have the same dual prices for boxing or UFC events?.

Why are we still paying extra for HD ?
Because years ago they decided that they could charge for it and that brought in a new stream of revenue ... also the fact that all providers charge for it is why its still there.

In a few minutes people will come in the thread and point out that you are no longer paying for HD, however its still built into the package that your paying for.
I do not know if they are making a SD recvr anymore or not, kinda doubt it.

 

[dishcomm]

I wrote this before but will do so again-

The majority of the population gets fast enough broadband for their DirecTV Now Service( if they are getting rid of Satellites) and that is what they care about, they are thinking about pulling customers away from other services ( like Comcast for example ) so that would offset any loses in the rural areas and show growth, they are thinking about no more costs involved with building and launching satellites, they are thinking about no more designing and building boxes to save costs, they are thinking about no more installs so no more paying installers, so more cost savings to ATT, that is how a corporation thinks.

If broadband providing corporations cared that much about rural customers they would already have broadband in those areas, but corporations have decided there is too much costs involved in doing so.


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The majority of the population gets fast enough broadband for their DirecTV Now Service..Technically correct. However, this is to the exclusion of believe it or not just people who reside in far flung places where there is more livestock than people. This applies to some who reside in suburbs as well.
I can take anyone to places less than 5 miles from my house who do not have cable tv plant running past their home.. These are also places where the fastest old school DSL ( only high speed available) is 5X1....Or slower.

 

[dishcomm]

I would have that checked out, as obviously something is wrong.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Yeah..But one cannot call for a tech visit every time the thing slows down.

 

[Ronnie-]

Yeah..But one cannot call for a tech visit every time the thing slows down.

Of course not, but when there is that kind of variation, it's justified.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

[ZandarKoad]

I agree 100% with espaeth. He used way to many zeros though. lol

I recon that 80% of the people watch the same 20% of the content out there. DBS is perfect for delivering the same identical content to millions of people. The IP network is not.

It's the same reason people ONLY talk about internet speeds in terms of download rate. They all consume WAY more than they put upstream. DirecTV & Dish both have true hybrid satellite / terrestrial systems that deliver entertainment via both IP and DBS. They have for years. It developed this way because it just makes sense.

Also, I don't think whole planet, low earth orbit satellite networks are going to be disruptive. They'll use the same IP protocol, which can't do a gigabazillion customers receiving hundreds of HD streams for ZERO added network load.

Satellite is here to stay, IMHO.

 

[Juan]

I agree 100% with espaeth. He used way to many zeros though. lol

I recon that 80% of the people watch the same 20% of the content out there. DBS is perfect for delivering the same identical content to millions of people. The IP network is not.

It's the same reason people ONLY talk about internet speeds in terms of download rate. They all consume WAY more than they put upstream. DirecTV & Dish both have true hybrid satellite / terrestrial systems that deliver entertainment via both IP and DBS. They have for years. It developed this way because it just makes sense.

Also, I don't think whole planet, low earth orbit satellite networks are going to be disruptive. They'll use the same IP protocol, which can't do a gigabazillion customers receiving hundreds of HD streams for ZERO added network load.

Satellite is here to stay, IMHO.

Problem is..att doesn't agree

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[navychop]

You mean their Marketing Department doesn't agree.

Unless they know Quantum Networking is about to arrive.

 

[ZandarKoad]

Problem is..att doesn't agree

LOL I just re-read the title of the OP's article. My understanding was:
"DirecTV will now become AT&T's primary video platform..." I missed the capital N on "Now."
I see what you mean!