DIRECTV and DIRECT NOW Streaming Merger Complete?

[NashGuy]

I would imagine there's probably a simple way of using bridge mode and Uverse TV - you'd just have to configure the router correctly for multicast, VLANs or whatever it is that trips up bridge mode with default settings.

Yes. As I mentioned above, it's not called "bridge mode," it's DMZ+ mode. It doesn't give the user quite as much freedom as a true bridge mode would but it does allow the user to continue receiving Uverse IPTV. See this thread if you want to read more:
Anyone have success with U-Verse IPTV on thrid party router?

Didn't I read somewhere that AT&T will use the Directv Now infrastructure to deliver this new "streaming Directv" service?

Yes, you probably read that from me, as I've posted it multiple times.

Obviously they can't do multicast for non-AT&T customers, and while they could for AT&T customers they might figure it isn't worth it since they already have to do the "hard way" for the rest. Its not even clear it is worth it for their future fixed wireless offering, depending on how many customers they end up serving per tower. The size of an HEVC stream isn't that large in a 5G network, and antenna diversity would mean broadcasting the same thing multiple times from a given tower anyway.

You'd only see savings from multicast on fixed wireless if you had multiple customers watching the same thing off the same antenna off the same tower. A single customer watching the same thing on multiple TVs could be handled by having the box at one TV stream to the other TVs within the home network.

Yeah, it may well be that AT&T decides that they have sufficient network bandwidth that it isn't worth fooling with multicast for live linear channels in their OTT TV service when accessed on their own network. As for delivering TV service via fixed 5G, AT&T's latest comments make it sound as though they've really cooled off on the idea of fixed 5G. They say that it doesn't make economic sense for them in most cases. (Verizon, OTOH, is very gung-ho on it.) For now, sounds like AT&T is mainly going to concentrate on upgrading more places to FTTH. (And, who knows, maybe their AirGig project is coming along and they think it will be an important factor in a couple of years.) At any rate, for FTTH and especially FTTN customers, it would seem to me that the efficiencies of multicast video would be significant during popular shows that lots of folks in the neighborhood are simultaneously watching, like major sports events, etc.

Here's an interesting article about how ABR multicast can be integrated alongside unicast in the same system using a "nanoCDN" solution. I imagine that AT&T has something along the lines of this capability in-house now and could implement it (or perhaps already has implemented it) in the new cloud-based streaming video platform that powers DTV Now and will eventually power all of their TV services.

Multicast ABR and low-latency streaming are the starting gun for migration to an all-HTTP video future | Videonet

 

[slice1900]

Yes. As I mentioned above, it's not called "bridge mode," it's DMZ+ mode. It doesn't give the user quite as much freedom as a true bridge mode would but it does allow the user to continue receiving Uverse IPTV. See this thread if you want to read more:
Anyone have success with U-Verse IPTV on thrid party router?

What I'm saying is that since true RFC1483 bridge mode apparently works for AT&T Uverse customers who don't have TV (assuming the others who posted it are correct) then it is surely possible to get it working for Uverse TV. Someone would just have to figure out what AT&T is doing in their routers that a standard router isn't doing. Would easy to figure out using something like Wireshark.

 

[NashGuy]

What I'm saying is that since true RFC1483 bridge mode apparently works for AT&T Uverse customers who don't have TV (assuming the others who posted it are correct) then it is surely possible to get it working for Uverse TV. Someone would just have to figure out what AT&T is doing in their routers that a standard router isn't doing. Would easy to figure out using something like Wireshark.

I dunno, maybe it would be possible to figure out how the AT&T gateway is handling multicast IPTV streams and then have them passed along to your retail router, which would handle them in the same way and pass them on to the Uverse TV STBs on the network. Although then you run into the possibility that the Uverse TV STB is locked in a way so that it can't connect to any router other than an AT&T gateway.

 

[nelson61]

Looks like there are several ways to ramp up subscriptions.

https://gizmodo.com/at-t-employees-reportedly-encouraged-to-use-unethical-s-1827088406