AT&T’s massive TV losses continue as another 900,000 customers flee.

[lparsons21]

I think we’ll see Dish subscriber losses but Sling gains. Of course that’s not a wash because of the revenue differences.

But I doubt that September will be any different for ATT’s video, especially the streaming parts and probably cable/sat too.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I think we’ll see Dish subscriber losses but Sling gains. Of course that’s not a wash because of the revenue differences.

But I doubt that September will be any different for ATT’s video, especially the streaming parts and probably cable/sat too.

Even sling Tv is loosing ground, to the dozens of other streaming providers.

The only reason why Directv will flatten out their losses is because nobody will be coming off of the $35 promotional pricing.

Directv really needs to go to 2 year pricing. Everyone that I know who is still selling Directv see the writing on the wall and is NOT disclosing the fact the price goes up in year 2.

If the sales people know they are not going to be around in a year, then why bother disclosing pricing when it will be AT&T’s issue to deal with later. They will have already gotten paid and can move on to better things.

 

[navychop]

I doubt Dish net losses will be 900,000. We will see soon enough.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I doubt Dish net losses will be 900,000. We will see soon enough.

They don’t have as many customers to loose that big of a percentage.

6.9 million satellite customers left!

I still have a poster in my office when they had 10 million.

 

[mwdxer1]

Customers dumped them after they got hit with the huge increase after the introductory promo pricing expired(since discontinued) . Both for satellite and their internet packages
As the promo drops roll off over time, the arterial bleeding will slow.

My friend who has Direct TV after dropping Dish when they lost HBO/Cinemax, found out the hard way that the 2nd year price increase would be a doozy with Direct. After his rate went up for the 2nd year, he totally dropped the Premiums. Don't know if he will go back to Dish at the end of his contract. He also misses the diginets that Dish carries.

 

[mwdxer1]

They don’t have as many customers to loose that big of a percentage.

6.9 million satellite customers left!

I still have a poster in my office when they had 10 million.

The latest info I have on Dish is 9.9 Million subs, down from the 14 million they had in 2014, so all of the satellite/cable companies are really losing customers. But with a decent package, and locals, you are looking at at least $100 a month, add in premiums and Sports, $150-$200. With the economy the way it is, I expect a lot more customer loss, especially if the customer has high speed.

 

[ncted]

While Hulu+Live wouldn’t work for me because the channels are wrong, I had considered it at one time. But I see more issues from user of it than I do of other services. Only the Live part, since the base works fine and has for a long time.

Well, I am not an fan of the non-Live UI either, but, channel offering aside, their Live service was pretty clunky to use IMHO.

 

[EarDemon]

I would love to feed my office with symmetric gig speeds, but Comcast Business will only sell me 600/35. I don't know if it's a capacity issue or what, but I think 35 up is ridiculous for business-class service in 2020. Google Fiber is across the street, but they are unwilling to bring it over to our side

It's a current limitation of the technology. The fastest upload you'll see on cable anywhere in the US is ~50 Mbps, and it's the smaller operators and over builders like Atlantic, WOW and RCN that offer 50. Comcast, Charter and Cox all max out at 35, overprivisioned to 42. Once DOCSIS 4.0 is implemented, upload speeds on cable will take off. The current DOCSIS 3/3.1 spec by CableLabs has upstream channels on 5 to 85 MHz and downstream on 108 MHz and up. With D4 (fka D3.1 Full Duplex), all frequencies will be able to be used for both upstream and downstream simultaneously. This will in theory lead to symmetrical 10 Gbps capabilities over coax, but I doubt we'll see that right away.

Well I guess it may be a little misleading to say it's a technical limitation. The current DOCSIS 3.1 spec allows for OFDM on upstream, but no provider has implemented that. Not really sure the reasoning, other than it may not be worth it, since with D4 is just around the corner and with D4 you can utilize existing QAM frequencies.

You could try to get a dedicated fiber circuit from Comcast that offers symmetrical speeds, but it will cost you a lot more than the business class version of the same DOCSIS you could get at home. I'm not sure of Comcast's pricing, but Charter starts at $400/month for 25 Mbps up and down and maxes out at 10 Gbps for who knows how many thousands of dollars.

Not sure why anyone would want Google as their ISP, that awful company is already too integrated in our lives, plus who knows how much longer they will even offer service.

 

[Claude Greiner]

The latest info I have on Dish is 9.9 Million subs, down from the 14 million they had in 2014, so all of the satellite/cable companies are really losing customers. But with a decent package, and locals, you are looking at at least $100 a month, add in premiums and Sports, $150-$200. With the economy the way it is, I expect a lot more customer loss, especially if the customer has high speed.

Sling customers don’t count! It should be counted on a separate line.

The true number is 6.97 million dish subs.

But of course Charlie wants to manipulate the numbers for Wall Street

 

[ewindowman]

I wonder if they would try to sneak in the free sling they are giving away as sub growth .


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[lparsons21]

The latest info I have on Dish is 9.9 Million subs, down from the 14 million they had in 2014, so all of the satellite/cable companies are really losing customers. But with a decent package, and locals, you are looking at at least $100 a month, add in premiums and Sports, $150-$200. With the economy the way it is, I expect a lot more customer loss, especially if the customer has high speed.

It isn’t just the economy, it is the effect the coronavirus reactions are bringing. Fewer new shows/episodes will show up so if you are going to be watching reruns anyway, why pay for a live channel presentation regardless of whether that is from cable, sat or streaming?

Instead you can mix up how you get ‘old’ shows/movies. And if you are ad tolerant you could get something like Hulu’s basic @$6/month and supplement with the slew of free, ad-supported streamers like Pluto, XUMO and others. And while sports are an issue in the streaming world, these days they really aren’t since most sports are dead with the sports channels showing reruns of past games/events. Why pay for that?

 

[Jimbo]

My friend who has Direct TV after dropping Dish when they lost HBO/Cinemax, found out the hard way that the 2nd year price increase would be a doozy with Direct. After his rate went up for the 2nd year, he totally dropped the Premiums. Don't know if he will go back to Dish at the end of his contract. He also misses the diginets that Dish carries.

And your Friend didn't KNOW the prices would go up in the 2nd year with D* ?

If so, your not much of a friend, keeping that info to yourself.

 

[Claude Greiner]

And your Friend didn't KNOW the prices would go up in the 2nd year with D* ?

If so, your not much of a friend, keeping that info to yourself.

It’s not being properly disclosed on the sales level.

Honest to god truth. Any customer with decent credit would not agree to get Directv if they knew the price would go up $50-$70 in the second year.

The only people who will agree to those crazy terms are the deadbeats, who are happy they qualified for the service when they likely owe the cable provider and dish money. They know dam well they won’t be with Directv Into the second year anyways.

When I was selling residential Directv, the second you told the customer it was a 2 year agreement and the price was going up $50-$70 in the second year, it would kill the deal right then and there.

 

[mwdxer1]

And your Friend didn't KNOW the prices would go up in the 2nd year with D* ?

If so, your not much of a friend, keeping that info to yourself.

He knew they would go up, but the installer gave them a line about all of the "discounts" and they believed him. Plus in the meantime AT&T bought Direct.

 

[mwdxer1]

Sling customers don’t count! It should be counted on a separate line.

The true number is 6.97 million dish subs.

But of course Charlie wants to manipulate the numbers for Wall Street

View attachment 144724

It really doesn't matter if Dish has 7 million or 17 million subs. The bottomline is all of the satellite/cable companies are dying. I wonder when the subscriber base will get so low that they cannot survive? Then probably Direct and Dish will merge. The government will have no choice, otherwise both go bye bye, leaving only cable. Even they are feeling the pinch, but they have high speed and phone to sustain them. But the handwriting is on the wall, streaming is the future and once the low lying satellites get going and you can get 200 down for $50 a month, things will even be worse for satellite TV.

 

[navychop]

I seriously doubt that price line. Even for an introductory price. Elon, God love him, plans to use STARLINK to fund a Mars colony. Really.

 

[Jimbo]

He knew they would go up, but the installer gave them a line about all of the "discounts" and they believed him. Plus in the meantime AT&T bought Direct.

He GOT all the discounts .... they were just all on the front end of the commitment.
And ATT buying D* had nothing to do with the 2 year commitment and prices going up in the 2nd year, its been that way for many years now.

 

[Jimbo]

I'd be happy with 100 down for $50 ...
Here 100 is more like 70 plus fees and taxes.

 

[Claude Greiner]

It really doesn't matter if Dish has 7 million or 17 million subs. The bottomline is all of the satellite/cable companies are dying. I wonder when the subscriber base will get so low that they cannot survive? Then probably Direct and Dish will merge. The government will have no choice, otherwise both go bye bye, leaving only cable. Even they are feeling the pinch, but they have high speed and phone to sustain them. But the handwriting is on the wall, streaming is the future and once the low lying satellites get going and you can get 200 down for $50 a month, things will even be worse for satellite TV.

Nah, Fiber and the cable providers will eventually kill off Dish and Directv.

At my office I had a 100 pair copper terminal
Installed in my building around 2006 to support about 40 or so POTS lines to run my business.

Eventually we had (6) T1 lines running to support out phone and data over the copper.

Today, it’s literally 1 piece of fiber with a wireless microwave backup to the detroit ren cen.

zero copper facilities in my building.

But for the most part a majority of people are serviced by cable and the traditional copper phone lines.

Eventually, all the copper is going to go to fiber. And since the phone companies are required to service the rule areas with basic phone service, these will be served by Fiber also

AT&T has got the right concept with AT&T Tv, which takes a traditional box that uses the internet as its connection.

Only issue is that in many cases at&T don’t have the internet to support their streaming Tv service.

But I do see the day when the cable and phone companies focus 100% on internet. To get your phone/Tv, it’s ran wirelessly off your internet connection.

With any service your never going to ever get to 0 subscribers. There are way too many old folks there who will continue to watch it until either Charlie filed for bankruptcy or the satellites fall from the sky.

But at what point can you afford to launch 250 million dollar satellites when you got 6 million customers to pay for it.

Forget all this SD to HD migration stuff. Eventually all the SD customers will go away, abc there will be only a handful left that will get swapped for free

 

[Ronnie-]

Sling customers don’t count! It should be counted on a separate line.

The true number is 6.97 million dish subs.

But of course Charlie wants to manipulate the numbers for Wall Street

View attachment 144724

Not that it matters, but I do not think that is accurate. Pretty much any other link other than the first one that you posted shows that the SAT count is 9.4 million, with sling being an additional 2.4-5. No other place shows them as a combines 9ish million.

Dish’s Charlie Ergen Talks Satellite Merger, RSNs After Company Lost 194,000 Pay TV Subscribers In Q4

Satellite TV provider Dish Networks said net pay-TV subscribers dropped by 194,000 in the fourth quarter to about 12 million, including 9.4 million for DISH TV subs and 2.59 million for Sling TV.

deadline.com

Dish reported earning Wednesday that saw pay-TV subscribers dropped by 194,000 in the fourth quarter to about 12 million, including 9.4 million for Dish TV subs and 2.59 million for Sling TV.

Reuters from the year before:

Dish misses profit estimates on bigger subscriber loss, shares fall

Dish Network Corp on Wednesday missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit as the U.S. satellite TV service provider lost more than expected pay-TV subscribers, sending its shares down 4.8 percent.

www.reuters.com

Dish ended the quarter with 9.9 million satellite subscribers, which make up its core TV business, down from about 11 million last year.

Streaming service Sling TV had 2.42 million subscribers at the end of the quarter, up from 2.2 million in the prior-year quarter.

In any case, they are both losing subs.