# Is 5G the real reason Verizon is moving to IP TV?



## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Just saw this article: http://www.cnet.com/news/with-5g-ve...090e536&bhid=21384817434472324605983066965727

It claims:

Verizon CEO says there's no reason why FiOS, now only available in the Northeast, couldn't go nationwide with a fixed wireless service.​
So is this the real reason Verizon is sold off big hunks of their wired FIOS system and why they are working on a FIOS IP TV solution? Sure sounds like it to me.

What do others think? Is it really possible to run a full blown cable system over 5G and provide high speed Internet too?


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## 7thton (Mar 3, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> Just saw this article: http://www.cnet.com/news/with-5g-ve...090e536&bhid=21384817434472324605983066965727
> 
> It claims:
> 
> ...


Well, the one issue I see with this would be ping. For example, when you change the channel it would take a while before the signal would display on screen.


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## cowboys2002 (Jun 15, 2001)

If I recall, many of the baby bells tried to use rooftop antenna to deliver premium channels (Pac Bell Mobile TV or whatever it was called).

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-06-20/business/fi-17281_1_pacific-bell

Wire (coax, fiber, etc.) tends to be more reliable. I remember getting DirecTV and being amazed by the channel choices and picture quality. Once I moved to Texas and the weather actually affected the signal, I looked for better options.

I would guess they bandwidth required to deliver Video is much greater than the bandwidth used for mobile browsing, email, etc. Plus, I can see rate plans increasing for "5G".


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## tampa8 (Jan 26, 2016)

The reason, and only reason Verizon is giving up on Fios is cost. They couldn't compete in the long run in price with other Cable operators when they had competition. They had to put a stop to all build outs (excepts those they promised to do and even some of those won't get done) because the cost to do them was not justified by the return.
They put their faith into fiber optics making their signal superior and to be able to carry more channels/more HD to all others. It kinda, sorta was at first but as time went on others were as good or at least not noticeably worse and now carry about as many HD channels. They also thought they would siphon off subscribers from Satellite which did not happen. Investors demanded they get out as best they can.

5G may be what they decide to do, but it isn't the reason they are ditching Fios. There are pros and cons to doing full blown TV over 5G but has been talked about by others including DISH and At&t. Sprint when they started built a new system for their Cell service with a hint they would get into a "video" service, but they have lost their way as of this time in even providing reliable Cell service.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

5G has nothing to do with FIOS. They gave up on FIOS because McWireless and ShamWOW took over and they are short-sighted morons who can't think beyond the quarter. FIOS is generating an ROI in under 10 years, which in the telecom and infrastructure world is excellent.

As is the case with all of the wireline providers, Verizon is not maximizing the capabilities of the FIOS system. They aren't even running MPEG-4 on the QAM side, much less using IPTV, where they could be delivering the full-bitrate signals like Google Fiber is. They aren't doing symmetrical gigabit internet, even though they have the technology rolled out to do that as well.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Bigg said:


> 5G has nothing to do with FIOS. They gave up on FIOS because McWireless and ShamWOW took over and they are short-sighted morons who can't think beyond the quarter. FIOS is generating an ROI in under 10 years, which in the telecom and infrastructure world is excellent.
> 
> As is the case with all of the wireline providers, Verizon is not maximizing the capabilities of the FIOS system. They aren't even running MPEG-4 on the QAM side, much less using IPTV, where they could be delivering the full-bitrate signals like Google Fiber is. They aren't doing symmetrical gigabit internet, even though they have the technology rolled out to do that as well.


So you just flat out believe the Verizon CEO is lying when he said that he is entertaining the idea that FiOS, could go nationwide via 5G? The article didn't mention IP TV but given they have already announced plans to test a pure IP TV system, I connected the 2. Could all be smoke to keep investors happy but I certainly hope some company figures out how to at least offer affordable high speed Internet via 5G - its about the only hope us people who live in cable free zones have.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Verizon already has a wireless delivery mechanism. It is not well received. 

Connecting iptv and 5G to the point of assuming they are replacing is a leap.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

atmuscarella said:


> So you just flat out believe the Verizon CEO is lying when he said that he is entertaining the idea that FiOS, could go nationwide via 5G? The article didn't mention IP TV but given they have already announced plans to test a pure IP TV system, I connected the 2. Could all be smoke to keep investors happy but I certainly hope some company figures out how to at least offer affordable high speed Internet via 5G - its about the only hope us people who live in cable free zones have.


Fios on 5G is similar to ATSC 3.0 being available on mobile devices. Does the Verizon CEO think millennials will watch a linear broadcast on a mobile device? Board wisdom states that millennials will never watch a linear broadcast on a mobile device.


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## Jerky (Apr 8, 2016)

Verizon is working on a specific type of 5G service for the house. It would be a different type of 5G then you would see in a phone. There would likely be an exterior antenna so maximize your bandwidth. They are still working all the details out.

This is the main reason they are stopping fiber build outs and selling off their fiber services. Their total cost of running a 5G system vs a whole fiber network is way different. Verizon and Verizon Wireless I assume would merge but who knows. They can consolidate their networks into one mega wireless network.

AT&T is going to be doing the same thing.

This is also the reason the Verizon strike is lasting for as long as it is, they don't want to commit to all of their line crews because a lot of their days are probably numbered.

Question is are they going to cap the bandwidth consumed? Are they going to keep prices the same? How is the latency going to be? Bandwidth is going to be awesome but what about that latency?? It should be interesting.


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## Jerky (Apr 8, 2016)

Also I wonder if Verizon 5G to the house would be available to every house in America without all those monopoly zones.

That is another factor I don't think people are considering. For a lot of people in America, Verizon 5G would be WAY better then anything their local cable companies or phone companies can offer. I would take a 50Mbit 5G service over a 3/5Mbit DSL connection any day of the week.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

An external antenna? Bye bye Verizon.


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## Jerky (Apr 8, 2016)

TonyD79 said:


> An external antenna? Bye bye Verizon.


People stick huge satellite dishes and antennas to their roof, whats the difference?


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Jerky said:


> People stick huge satellite dishes and antennas to their roof, whats the difference?


Few people do. Most people are now used to having no antenna at all.


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## Jerky (Apr 8, 2016)

TonyD79 said:


> Few people do. Most people are now used to having no antenna at all.


A lot of people have dishes. This device would likely be much smaller. Verizon is calling it fixed wireless. Don't think of it like 5G for a cell phone. My understanding is it would be different then mobile wireless.

We are years away from this though. But this will be the future of connectivity, Verizon and AT&T have already stated that in so many words. Maintaining the wired network is so expensive.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> So you just flat out believe the Verizon CEO is lying when he said that he is entertaining the idea that FiOS, could go nationwide via 5G? The article didn't mention IP TV but given they have already announced plans to test a pure IP TV system, I connected the 2. Could all be smoke to keep investors happy but I certainly hope some company figures out how to at least offer affordable high speed Internet via 5G - *its about the only hope us people who live in cable free zones have.*


The problem is, those cable-free zones are also probably the last place where a 5G network will get built out.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

We'll have to see where 5G ends up going, but if they actually achieve anything close to the 10Gbit/sec speeds and 1mSec latencies being targeted, there's no reason it couldn't compete with the current cable TV system where whole neighborhoods share bandwidth.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

DevdogAZ said:


> The problem is, those cable-free zones are also probably the last place where a 5G network will get built out.


For truly remote areas I am guessing you are correct. But lots of cable free zones are pretty close to more populated areas. I am only 1.5 miles outside my local village which is allot of distance for wired but nothing for wireless. Right now the closest cell tower is about 6 miles away and I have 4G available at my house from multiple carriers, the only issue with it is cost.

As a side note I have a friend in Verizon telephone area (I am Frontier) and their DSL went down, because of the strike the office guys couldn't fix it. So they gave them a 4G hot spot/router with unlimited data for the same price and said they could keep it until they could fix their DSL. They are hoping the DSL never gets fixed, the 4G is super fast compared to the 3Mbps DSL they had, which was the fastest available in their area.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> So you just flat out believe the Verizon CEO is lying when he said that he is entertaining the idea that FiOS, could go nationwide via 5G? The article didn't mention IP TV but given they have already announced plans to test a pure IP TV system, I connected the 2. Could all be smoke to keep investors happy but I certainly hope some company figures out how to at least offer affordable high speed Internet via 5G - its about the only hope us people who live in cable free zones have.


It's nonsense to talk about a service based on technology that doesn't even exist yet. 5G is just a hype term for something after 4G.

Also, it is literally impossible that FiOS could be offered over 5G wireless, as by definition, FiOS has to have BPON or GPON FTTH or FTTB in order to *BE* FiOS.

The reason that there are people living in Verizon's area who don't have GPON fibre at their house is because Verizon was too darn cheap to roll it out. There is nothing technically or economically impossible about 100% FiOS coverage, it's just that McWireless and ShamWOW are short-sighted idiots who are too stupid to realize that a 10- to 15-year ROI on fibre is a good investment in Verizon's future.



DevdogAZ said:


> The problem is, those cable-free zones are also probably the last place where a 5G network will get built out.


Probably true. It's sad that phone companies like Verizon have just left people behind and abdicated their responsibility as the incumbent to provide good service to them.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Jerky said:


> A lot of people have dishes. This device would likely be much smaller. Verizon is calling it fixed wireless. Don't think of it like 5G for a cell phone. My understanding is it would be different then mobile wireless.
> 
> We are years away from this though. But this will be the future of connectivity, Verizon and AT&T have already stated that in so many words. Maintaining the wired network is so expensive.


The people who have Fios or Comcast largely have it because they don't want dishes or antennas. Fios is going to go into a market that DirecTV and Dish have already penetrated. Another mistake by the Verizon team. Not surprising at all.


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## Joe01880 (Feb 8, 2009)

Verizon FiOS has been a semi controlled train wreck from day one.
If you've ever been in Verizon billing hell after starting FiOS you know exactly what I mean.
Not everyone jumped on the FiOS band wagon like was the thinking of the prior leadership at FiOS in the areas they did deploy in. Running the fiber optic foot print cost them a fortune, a fortune they have yet to recover i'd bet. Also I can't imagine what there're in house DVR software must have set them back as buggy as it was and still is.
Verizon bit off more than they can chew with tv. They are still trying to figure out how to change that, IPTV might be one solution. Not one I'm looking forward to at all.
Isn't they whole point of owning a TiVo is to avoid commercials?
Good luck with that if IPTV becomes the norm!

Sent from my LG G4 using Tapatalk.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

TonyD79 said:


> The people who have Fios or Comcast largely have it because they don't want dishes or antennas. Fios is going to go into a market that DirecTV and Dish have already penetrated. Another mistake by the Verizon team. Not surprising at all.


There are some irrational nutjobs like my parents who can't handle the concept of a dish on their roof. But most people either have cable/FIOS because of bundles, local channel selection, because it is the default option, or because they don't have satellite LOS. Or they just jump back and forth for deals.



Joe01880 said:


> Not everyone jumped on the FiOS band wagon like was the thinking of the prior leadership at FiOS in the areas they did deploy in. Running the fiber optic foot print cost them a fortune, a fortune they have yet to recover i'd bet. Also I can't imagine what there're in house DVR software must have set them back as buggy as it was and still is.


FIOS has paid off very nicely in the areas that got it. Meanwhile, they have just abandoned other areas, and abdicated their responsibility as a telco to continuously upgrade. Also, in the long run, fiber is far cheaper than copper to maintain, far more robust, and allows Verizon to have significantly better market penetration than aging copper that nobody wants.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Bigg said:


> There are some irrational nutjobs like my parents who can't handle the concept of a dish on their roof. But most people either have cable/FIOS because of bundles, local channel selection, because it is the default option, or because they don't have satellite LOS.


Believe what you want to believe.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

I love these debates we get into here about first world issues. 

When one lives someplace where you have the choice between several good or at least acceptable wired Pay TV/Internet/Telephone providers it is real easy to fulfill ones preference for not having an antenna on ones home.

However change that to no acceptable wired Pay TV/Internet/Telephone providers or a more acceptable wireless ones that require antennas and I think most peoples desire for an antenna free home becomes secondary. Given that the number of people with satellite antennas is north of 35 million I really don't think a small antenna for 5G reception will be the deciding factor for lots of people when evaluating if that type of service is their best option or not. 

The fact that a CEO of a major wireless carrier believes it will be technically & financially possible to deliver a full blown Pay TV service and very high speed Internet access via 5G provides for the potential of more completion in the Pay TV and Internet access markets, I think this is a very good thing. 

I understand people are unhappy that with "local" telephone companies for not having installed fiber to everyone's home. I am unhappy about that also. Given that I see no indication that my "local" telephone company (Frontier) has any intentions of ever installing fiber I am hoping for alternative tech to provide additional options. If in the next 5-10 years 5G can do this great.


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## markjrenna (Mar 23, 2006)

I could not agree more. Complete incompetence on display.



Bigg said:


> 5G has nothing to do with FIOS. They gave up on FIOS because McWireless and ShamWOW took over and they are short-sighted morons who can't think beyond the quarter. FIOS is generating an ROI in under 10 years, which in the telecom and infrastructure world is excellent.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> I love these debates we get into here about first world issues.
> 
> When one lives someplace where you have the choice between several good or at least acceptable wired Pay TV/Internet/Telephone providers it is real easy to fulfill ones preference for not having an antenna on ones home.


There are people out there who are totally irrational about satellite dishes on their house, but if you look around a LOT of house have them, and I know of cases where there are unused dishes kicking around. Most people have no issue with a visually attractive dish (like a DirecTV SL3/5) on their roof.


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## matk123 (Aug 23, 2015)

Bigg said:


> FIOS has paid off very nicely in the areas that got it. Meanwhile, they have just abandoned other areas, and abdicated their responsibility as a telco to continuously upgrade. Also, in the long run, fiber is far cheaper than copper to maintain, far more robust, and allows Verizon to have significantly better market penetration than aging copper that nobody wants.


Bigg is 100% spot on with the success of FIOS. Verizon FIOS, on its own, is a financial success. However, when you compare side-by-side costs, margins, profits and growth next to Verizon Wireless, FIOS looks like a dog that needs to be put down. In other words, Verizon Wireless is _sooo_ profitable, that FIOS simply looks like a waste of manpower, capital, and resources.

I can see why Verizon CEOs want to leverage Verizon Wireless into Broadband and TV -- because everything Verizon Wireless "touches" turns to gold.


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## tenthplanet (Mar 5, 2004)

Joe01880 said:


> Verizon FiOS has been a semi controlled train wreck from day one.
> If you've ever been in Verizon billing hell after starting FiOS you know exactly what I mean.
> Not everyone jumped on the FiOS band wagon like was the thinking of the prior leadership at FiOS in the areas they did deploy in. Running the fiber optic foot print cost them a fortune, a fortune they have yet to recover i'd bet. Also I can't imagine what there're in house DVR software must have set them back as buggy as it was and still is.
> Verizon bit off more than they can chew with tv. They are still trying to figure out how to change that, IPTV might be one solution. Not one I'm looking forward to at all.
> ...


 The point of having a Tivo is having something reliable to record TV while one is at work or out of the home, that in an event of a power failure restarts itself. Tivo just does recording (and a little streaming). Most PC recording solutions are not that dependable if you're not around. Commerical skipping is OCD.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

matk123 said:


> Bigg is 100% spot on with the success of FIOS. Verizon FIOS, on its own, is a financial success. However, when you compare side-by-side costs, margins, profits and growth next to Verizon Wireless, FIOS looks like a dog that needs to be put down. In other words, Verizon Wireless is _sooo_ profitable, that FIOS simply looks like a waste of manpower, capital, and resources.
> 
> I can see why Verizon CEOs want to leverage Verizon Wireless into Broadband and TV -- because everything Verizon Wireless "touches" turns to gold.


Yeah, that's just it, they completely lost the concept of ROI and actually crunching the numbers out. By wireline standards, FIOS is wildly successful and very profitable, and imagine if they actually bothered to flip the switch on gig symmetrical internet, upgraded to all-MPEG-4 video, and made a few other tweaks here and there?

The areas that they haven't wired with FIOS aren't as dense and profitable as those that they have, but a lot of those areas don't have good competitors, or competitors at all, so it's sort of a mixed bag in terms of how profitable it would be. But when you factor in maintaining a copper plan, it should be a no-brainer to just do FIOS everywhere, as in the long run, copper is just a giant black hole for money to go down, whereas FIOS generates returns.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

100% agree with Bigg here. Verizon has completely lost its mind on fios.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

TonyD79 said:


> 100% agree with Bigg here. Verizon has completely lost its mind on fios.


I have often wondered why telcos have not pushed fiber to the home allot more than they have. It isn't just Verizon, look at Frontier, other than what they have bought from Verizon has Frontier connected even one home to fiber? I don't think so. They have no wireless side - so what is Frontiers long term plan? To keep dumping money into old copper lines until no one uses them?

Ether these CEOs are all nuts or there is something we are missing.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

The problem with ANY kind of wireline business is the labor required to upgrade it. Verizon invested billions in pulling fiber and still only covered a tiny portion of their service area. Building out wireless, on the other hand, requires far less manpower and the physical infrastructure is already done. Add in the points already made about profitability (largely because wireless data is metered) and it is easy to see why Verizon would rather invest there.

For the Frontiers, Comcasts and other cable companies, they are looking at their existing fiber and coax networks much the way Verizon sees wireless: the data side of their business is WAY more profitable than TV, so their goal is to be ISPs, period.

For both groups, IP distribution of video is more attractive than traditional cable TV. It allows them to offer their TV service nationally (if they even stay in that business). What is likely is that some sort of common IPTV offering will be developed for small and medium size cable operators (sort of an IP version the HITS - Head end In The Sky - service). The bigger players will likely offer their own packages. But mostly, they will all be content agnostic...they'll make money no matter what you watch.


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## Joe3 (Dec 12, 2006)

After a conversation with a Verizon rep, I received a new router at the beginning of the year that enables 5G. I didn't ask for it. I still have it in the box. The new is better revolution for the consumer is over. RIP


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Diana Collins said:


> What is likely is that some sort of common IPTV offering will be developed for small and medium size cable operators (sort of an IP version the HITS - Head end In The Sky - service). The bigger players will likely offer their own packages. But mostly, they will all be content agnostic...they'll make money no matter what you watch.


Diana, are you familiar with what Layer3 is doing? It seems to me like they could be an example of a common IPTV offering for small-to-midsize MSOs.

http://www.wired.com/2016/04/layer3-tv/

If such solutions take off, you have to wonder where that leaves TiVo's MSO business, as that's the same market segment they're targeting.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> I have often wondered why telcos have not pushed fiber to the home allot more than they have. It isn't just Verizon, look at Frontier, other than what they have bought from Verizon has Frontier connected even one home to fiber? I don't think so. They have no wireless side - so what is Frontiers long term plan? To keep dumping money into old copper lines until no one uses them?
> 
> Ether these CEOs are all nuts or there is something we are missing.


Frontier is actually upgrading copper lines with new RDSLAMs and FTTN and Fiber Ethernet feeding existing RDSLAMs. The problem with Frontier is that they just don't have the capital to spend billions on fiber. Verizon does, and should have just kept rolling out fiber as fast as they could until they were 100% fiber.

Verizon also abanonded even the most basic upgrades to copper, like just upgrading existing RDSLAMs to IP-ADSL. Even AT&T has invested in their copper network, Verizon has just let it rot. It's been all-or-nothing for them.

No large telco has actually intelligently pursed mixing FTTN and FTTH technologies. In more suburban and rural areas, you have to go FTTH, but with an IPTV platform, I could see a strong case for "hollowing out" the copper network, and leaving the last <1000m of it in place to feed high density areas, underground neighborhoods, and MDUs with FTTC or FTTB topologies. But meanwhile, AT&T is trying to use FTTN in the middle of nowhere where loop lengths are ridiculous, and Verizon spent a ton of money doing pure FTTH in a lot of MDUs.

I think ultimately, everything should be FTTH, but if I were running a large telco, I would have done IPTV with FTTC/FTTB for MDUs and other targeted applications, and saved the time and money to do the rest with FTTH, and then plan on looping back once I was at 100% 100mbps to put pure FTTH into those MDUs and underground places 5 or 10 or 15 years down the road when I had fully and completely exhausted the capability of the copper and line card upgrades to push VDSL2, pair bonding and vectoring out on short loop lengths. Also, with FTTB and IPTV, as opposed to QAM TV, newer buildings that are prewired with CAT-5 cable could get gigabit triple play delivered to the wiring closet on fiber, and use Ethernet MDU ONTs on each floor to push out the last <100m, and get 100% of the benefit of FTTH with a lot less work.



Diana Collins said:


> The problem with ANY kind of wireline business is the labor required to upgrade it. Verizon invested billions in pulling fiber and still only covered a tiny portion of their service area.


Wrong. Even before the divestitures to Frontier, they were at about 65% FIOS coverage, and that's without Alexandria, Boston, and a few other moderate sized cities in their service territory.



> For the Frontiers, Comcasts and other cable companies, they are looking at their existing fiber and coax networks much the way Verizon sees wireless: the data side of their business is WAY more profitable than TV, so their goal is to be ISPs, period.


Cable is a different animal. It has WAY more bandwidth than POTS.



Joe3 said:


> After a conversation with a Verizon rep, I received a new router at the beginning of the year that enables 5G. I didn't ask for it. I still have it in the box. The new is better revolution for the consumer is over. RIP


There is no such thing. 5G doesn't exist outside of lab and field tests right now.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Bigg said:


> ....... There is no such thing. 5G doesn't exist outside of lab and field tests right now.


I believe he was referring to the 5Ghz wifi that's broadcast from wireless routers, in addition to the older 2.4Ghz band.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> I believe he was referring to the 5Ghz wifi that's broadcast from wireless routers, in addition to the older 2.4Ghz band.


Yeah, that's probably what he was trying to say, but that's not what he said. Usually, I assume 5G means 5ghz Wifi, but in a thread about actual 5G, a very poor shortcut on his part...


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> Diana, are you familiar with what Layer3 is doing? It seems to me like they could be an example of a common IPTV offering for small-to-midsize MSOs.
> 
> http://www.wired.com/2016/04/layer3-tv/
> 
> If such solutions take off, you have to wonder where that leaves TiVo's MSO business, as that's the same market segment they're targeting.


Yes...and there will be others (followed by a shake-out, no doubt).

TiVo's future, in concert with Rovi's products, services, and relationships, will be to provide a common stack of UI code. Need search? We have a module. Want to enable DVR functions? We have the original trick play code right here. Need a program guide? Just another module. The goal will be to make it available inside of smart TVs, STBs and streaming sticks from various manufacturers. This is of course what TiVo tried years ago, but failed to accomplish for reasons unknown (although, they were rumored to be impossible to negotiate with in the old days). Let's hope Rovi has the tools and people to make it work this time.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

Bigg said:


> ...Wrong. Even before the divestitures to Frontier, they were at about 65% FIOS coverage, and that's without Alexandria, Boston, and a few other moderate sized cities in their service territory...


It depends on how you measure "coverage." The 65% number is based upon "premises passed." Ask anyone in New York City what that means and they will tell you that FiOS passes their premise, but it just keeps on going and doesn't come in. Large numbers of apartment buildings in NYC were skipped, or only partially wired, yet are 100% counted as "covered" by Verizon.

However, if you look at the actually territory covered it is a very small area. When looking at the attached map, remember that Verizon's territory covers most of the Northeast and portions of the Middle Atlantic region.










The above map was made before the California, Texas and Florida divestitures, so they still show as Verizon.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Diana Collins said:


> It depends on how you measure "coverage." The 65% number is based upon "premises passed." Ask anyone in New York City what that means and they will tell you that FiOS passes their premise, but it just keeps on going and doesn't come in. Large numbers of apartment buildings in NYC were skipped, or only partially wired, yet are 100% counted as "covered" by Verizon.
> 
> However, if you look at the actually territory covered it is a very small area. When looking at the attached map, remember that Verizon's territory covers most of the Northeast and portions of the Middle Atlantic region.


The map is irrelevant. Verizon now only serves a handful of northeastern states, so by spinning off CA, TX, and FL, they probably increased the percentage of subs who can get FIOS. Yes, they have inflated the numbers in NYC, but even if you discount those folks, you still have well over half of Verizon's customer able to actually get FIOS.

When talking about land area coverage, you have to consider that the POPs of the US is very concentrated, especially around the NYC, Boston, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore areas, all of which have FIOS in a large part of the metro area.

I'm not saying Verizon has been good overall. Their abandonment of the other 35% of their customers is shameful, their failure to do 100% FIOS in NJ like they agreed to and got billions for is illegal, and the people running Verizon should be in prison for it. While their behavior in NYC is completely bizarre, since it's an incredibly dense and profitable market, everyone in NYC has access to Altice or Charter, and some also have RCN. The people who have really been left behind are the rural customers who are beyond the reaches of cable, and where Verizon has neglected existing RDSLAMs, neglected adding more RDSLAMs, neglected upgrades to FIOS, and neglected their copper plant as a whole.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Wow, you guys are scaring me!  I'm about to help my parents switch from Comcast in the Philly suburbs over to FiOS because they're fed up with their service, pricing and shenanigans. They've been with Comcast since almost the beginning (35+ years?) Should I not do this?


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Bigg said:


> The map is irrelevant. Verizon now only serves a handful of northeastern states, so by spinning off CA, TX, and FL, they probably increased the percentage of subs who can get FIOS. Yes, they have inflated the numbers in NYC, but even if you discount those folks, you still have well over half of Verizon's customer able to actually get FIOS.


Verizon's FIOS coverage in VA is terrible since it's only around the northern VA, Richmond and VA Beach/Newport News areas. The rest of the state has no coverage.

Scott


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

HerronScott said:


> Verizon's FIOS coverage in VA is terrible since it's only around the northern VA, Richmond and VA Beach/Newport News areas. The rest of the state has no coverage.
> 
> Scott


Yet, those 3 metro areas account for about 5 million of Virginia's 8 million population.

Wireless tech makes a lot of sense in the less dense parts of the state, well, that is as long as the wireless tower/antennas don't get taken out by a storm.


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## Joe3 (Dec 12, 2006)

Bigg said:


> Yeah, that's probably what he was trying to say, but that's not what he said. Usually, I assume 5G means 5ghz Wifi, but in a thread about actual 5G, a very poor shortcut on his part...


My bad. 5ghz showing up with the router as 5G was confusing, but learning.


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## Joe3 (Dec 12, 2006)

HarperVision said:


> Wow, you guys are scaring me!  I'm about to help my parents switch from Comcast in the Philly suburbs over to FiOS because they're fed up with their service, pricing and shenanigans. They've been with Comcast since almost the beginning (35+ years?) Should I not do this?


Do it. The first thing you notice here in the northeast is the level of professionalism with the guys they send out to install FIOS. No sleazy private contractors or low wage personal. They seem to be proud of who they work for and the work they do. They are all Union people.

2nd thing you notice if bundling three services, telephone, internet, and cable, it's priced lower than Comcast/Infinity and the telephone service is better.

3rd thing you notice is that when streaming from your provider, it throttles up after a little while and not down like Comcast/Infinity did. The picture quality on cable is better across all channels, not just the most popular or premium channels.

4th you may want to reward the competitor that is forcing the competition in the area.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

HarperVision said:


> Wow, you guys are scaring me!  I'm about to help my parents switch from Comcast in the Philly suburbs over to FiOS because they're fed up with their service, pricing and shenanigans. They've been with Comcast since almost the beginning (35+ years?) Should I not do this?


Just print out the pricing deal so you have a hard copy of it. Make sure the details are listed. FIOS has so many deals going on that the potential is there for them to mess up your billing initially. Everything else about the service is great.

Also note that the real download Internet speed is 10 Mbps FASTER than the posted speed because FIOS reserves 10 Mbps for VoD HD. But if you're not using VoD, FIOS let you use that extra bandwidth for Internet instead.

Be aware that after the new customer contract is up the price is going to jump up a lot unless you call in and ask for deals.


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## Videodrome (Jun 20, 2008)

First consider 5G doesnt exist even as a candiate release . 
"
Based on the above observations, some sources suggest that a new generation of 5G standards may be introduced in the early 2020s"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G

There isnt even a revision in UMTS , to support a "5G" version. It incremental similar to umts>HSPA>LTEv1> (not decided )


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Videodrome said:


> First consider 5G doesnt exist even as a candiate release .
> "
> Based on the above observations, some sources suggest that a new generation of 5G standards may be introduced in the early 2020s"
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
> ...


The article linked to in the first post of this thread indicates both Verzion & AT&T plan to move before 2020 to deploy a 5G fixed mobile broadband service, offering consumers high speeds in a single location like their home.

Also in the actually article you quoted it said: "The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance feels that 5G should be rolled out *by* 2020". You have to go to the "debate" section of the article to find the less optimistic time frame you stated.

While it is impossible to predict exactly when & where 5G will go live, I it is realistic to believe there will be 5G home broadband available before 2020.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Joe3 said:


> Do it. The first thing you notice here in the northeast is the level of professionalism with the guys they send out to install FIOS. No sleazy private contractors or low wage personal. They seem to be proud of who they work for and the work they do. They are all Union people. 2nd thing you notice if bundling three services, telephone, internet, and cable, it's priced lower than Comcast/Infinity and the telephone service is better. 3rd thing you notice is that when streaming from your provider, it throttles up after a little while and not down like Comcast/Infinity did. The picture quality on cable is better across all channels, not just the most popular or premium channels. 4th you may want to reward the competitor that is forcing the competition in the area.





BobCamp1 said:


> Just print out the pricing deal so you have a hard copy of it. Make sure the details are listed. FIOS has so many deals going on that the potential is there for them to mess up your billing initially. Everything else about the service is great. Also note that the real download Internet speed is 10 Mbps FASTER than the posted speed because FIOS reserves 10 Mbps for VoD HD. But if you're not using VoD, FIOS let you use that extra bandwidth for Internet instead. Be aware that after the new customer contract is up the price is going to jump up a lot unless you call in and ask for deals.


Thanks for easing my mind guys!


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> Wow, you guys are scaring me!  I'm about to help my parents switch from Comcast in the Philly suburbs over to FiOS because they're fed up with their service, pricing and shenanigans. They've been with Comcast since almost the beginning (35+ years?) Should I not do this?


FIOS is the better service, hands down, even though they still aren't utilizing anywhere close to the full capability of their existing system (more HD channels and gigabit internet, neither of which they are willing to do).



HerronScott said:


> Verizon's FIOS coverage in VA is terrible since it's only around the northern VA, Richmond and VA Beach/Newport News areas. The rest of the state has no coverage.


Sure, by land area, but by POPs, other than Alexandria, they have most of the populated areas covered.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

HerronScott said:


> Verizon's FIOS coverage in VA is terrible since it's only around the northern VA, Richmond and VA Beach/Newport News areas. The rest of the state has no coverage.
> 
> Scott


I'm still glad I have FiOS here in Northern VA. I'm going on nine years with FiOS now.


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## larry5601 (Jul 15, 2015)

atmuscarella said:


> I love these debates we get into here about first world issues.
> 
> When one lives someplace where you have the choice between several good or at least acceptable wired Pay TV/Internet/Telephone providers it is real easy to fulfill ones preference for not having an antenna on ones home.
> 
> ...


I grew up watching TV using an antenna, The reason most people I know including me switched to cable was to get more channels and more reliable TV. In rural Iowa where I grew up weather always caused problems with reception and there were only 4 channels. The choice of cable had nothing to do with with looks of the antenna. Now I have an antenna again and I get a lot of channels and the picture is way better than what I got from u-verse or am getting from TWC now. Now though I live in Southern Calif. I only have TWC TV now is because of a couple of cable only channels that I watch a lot. But when my cheap year of TWC TV is up I will probably switch to sling or VUE for these channels.

If people knew how much better the picture quality was from OTA, more people would use antennas and stream what else they need.

If I can get 1 gbps from 5G to the home as cheap as the 300 mbps from TWC of course I will love an antenna. Since Google is investing in this I think this is very likely to happen. When this happens Google will expand way faster then they are now and we can break the monopoly that cable and the Teleco have on internet access. The only downside to 5G to the home for me is that it is still at least 4 or 5 years away. That is probably still sooner that I will get fiber to my house.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

You don't understand the huge swath of suburban customers and the push to eliminate antennas from entire developments and even entire cities. 

People don't want antennas anymore.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

TonyD79 said:


> You don't understand the huge swath of suburban customers and the push to eliminate antennas from entire developments and even entire cities.
> 
> People don't want antennas anymore.


I'd say the average American doesn't want a huge metal yagi antenna perched on their roofs like back in the '50s and '60s. But lots of people don't mind small antennas; look at all the little DBS dishes you see everywhere for DirecTV and Dish. As for any push to eliminate antennas, that's illegal. The federal government has ruled that homeowner associations, condo/apartment management, etc. cannot keep you from putting up an antenna or dish to receive TV.

And if Google Fiber does implement millimeter-wave wireless beaming to get their gigabit internet from the street to the house (instead of running fiber all the way to the home), it will make it much less costly and much faster for them to roll out that service around the country. I don't think the receptor antenna mounted on homes would be very big if Starry Internet's "Starry Point" antenna is any indication. (Starry is a start-up aiming to offer broadband via millimeter-wave wireless.)

I live in Nashville, where Google Fiber is just starting their rollout. There's a lot of excitement about it and a lot of folks can't wait to drop Comcast or AT&T and switch to Google. Given the choice between having a 12-inch tall antenna mounted on your house or having your yard dug up to lay fiber optic cable, I tend to think more people would go with the former choice, assuming it promised reliable performance.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

There are far fewer satellite customers than cable customers. A big reason is because people don't want dishes. Or can't have them. There are lots of places that the rules you are quoting don't work. Apartments without balconies as an example. 

And I wasn't talking about forced standards, I was talking about standards the people living in places want.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

TonyD79 said:


> You don't understand the huge swath of suburban customers and the push to eliminate antennas from entire developments and even entire cities.
> 
> People don't want antennas anymore.


Tell that to all the Yankees fans here in CT after two cable providers have been shut out of getting YES network. The DirecTV dishes are growing like weeds. As I drive around, I see a TON of DirecTV and even a few DISH dishes. Satellite providers have a fundamental business problem with internet bundling from cable companies. But the size of their dishes is not a problem, that's for sure.



NashGuy said:


> I live in Nashville, where Google Fiber is just starting their rollout. There's a lot of excitement about it and a lot of folks can't wait to drop Comcast or AT&T and switch to Google. Given the choice between having a 12-inch tall antenna mounted on your house or having your yard dug up to lay fiber optic cable, I tend to think more people would go with the former choice, assuming it promised reliable performance.


Unfortunately, Joe Average doesn't really care how the service is delivered. Relatively few places use underground utilities, most places are aerial, so it's just another drop done from the pole, basically no disruption to anything. Plug and play. If people could get good service that they like, they'll be fine with a cantenna. Look at all the satellite dishes out there. People are fine with those.

People in the know prefer the fiber for technical reasons, but wouldn't have an issue with a little cantenna.



TonyD79 said:


> There are far fewer satellite customers than cable customers. A big reason is because people don't want dishes. Or can't have them. There are lots of places that the rules you are quoting don't work. Apartments without balconies as an example.
> 
> And I wasn't talking about forced standards, I was talking about standards the people living in places want.


There are people, like my parents, who are irrational about having a dish on their house. But the bigger issue is cable and telco bundling of broadband or people who just do the default, or places with NLOS. It's true there are also places with no balconies, or where they are facing the wrong direction.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

There is no evidence that satellite is growing acceptance at the rate you are claiming. I'm a big fan of directv but i know most people don't want any antenna of any kind.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

TonyD79 said:


> There is no evidence that satellite is growing acceptance at the rate you are claiming. I'm a big fan of directv but i know most people don't want any antenna of any kind.


DirecTV is not growing much, and the problem is twofold.

1. Cable company forced bundling for broadband. Much of the country only has cable broadband available. FIOS is doing very aggressive bundling, as are a few other providers. There are a few places where local ISPs, VDSL-capable CLECs, fiber co-ops, or others make having two different companies feasible. There are also parts of the 21-state AT&T territory now where they can bundle VDSL, but that's only parts of parts of 21 of the 50 states.

2. The decline of pay TV, cord cutting, and especially skinny bundling. DirecTV can't compete. They don't have internet to bundle with, even within parts of the 21-state AT&T service area where they have U-Verse VDSL or fiber available, it's not economical to install a dish and a bunch of hardware just for locals and HBO. Cable is already there, and they just plop a box in on the drop that's shared with internet and maybe phone.

Having a dish on the roof is not an issue for most people. People will switch when compelled to do so. Metrocast (now Atlantic Broadband), and now Comcast have gotten shut out of YES in Connecticut, and DirecTV has made a killing. If YES is that important to folks, they switch. Around here, there are dishes everywhere. We've got Atlantic Broadband in one area, and an old Comcast system with limited channels "competing" against a local overbuilder that's even worse on the TV side in another.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

TonyD79 said:


> There is no evidence that satellite is growing acceptance at the rate you are claiming. I'm a big fan of directv *but i know most people don't want any antenna of any kind.*


You keep saying that, but you have to actual facts to back it up. That might be your opinion, and you may have a few anecdotal stories to support that assertion, but I don't think you can provide any kind of universal evidence that "most people don't want an antenna of any kind."

In fact, the proliferation of cord cutting and people relying on OTA for locals seems to indicate just the opposite.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

DevdogAZ said:


> You keep saying that, but you have to actual facts to back it up. That might be your opinion, and you may have a few anecdotal stories to support that assertion, but I don't think you can provide any kind of universal evidence that "most people don't want an antenna of any kind."
> 
> In fact, the proliferation of cord cutting and people relying on OTA for locals seems to indicate just the opposite.


Some OTA can use an attic antenna, I don't think people would care about that if they have an attic they can use. I am in the Hartford CT area and as an experiment I tried an attic antenna, I could receive everything that is on OTA in my area but ABC as that is in New Haven CT, for ABC I would have to use an outside antenna I guess, and I have a two story home.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

TonyD79 said:


> There are far fewer satellite customers than cable customers. A big reason is because people don't want dishes. Or can't have them. There are lots of places that the rules you are quoting don't work. Apartments without balconies as an example.
> 
> And I wasn't talking about forced standards, I was talking about standards the people living in places want.


Yes, SOME people don't go with satellite because they don't want a dish on their roof, true. But there are other reasons, probably more influential reasons, why consumers may choose cable/telco over satellite, such as package pricing including internet, reliability, simple stasis, etc.

That said, it looks like a LOT of Americans don't mind having a dish on their roof. About 33.68 million homes, in fact, as of last year according to this source:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/...-the-largest-number-of-subscribers-in-the-us/

Granted, among the top 10 pay TV providers in the USA, non-satellite providers account for 53.1 million households. (Cable TV, not including telco providers Verizon and AT&T Uverse, total up to 41.63 million, meaning that satellite has about 81% as many subs as cable TV. I'm not sure I'd say that's "far fewer".)

So satellite accounts for 38.8% of the top 10 total pay TV subscriber base. That's a really big chunk and one that may be poised to grow as AT&T deprecates their Uverse TV service and shifts consumers to DirecTV.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Yes, SOME people don't go with satellite because they don't want a dish on their roof, true. But there are other reasons, probably more influential reasons, why consumers may choose cable/telco over satellite, such as package pricing including internet, reliability, simple stasis, etc.


It's about defaults, pricing, and bundling. Satellite is more reliable than cable, although FIOS trumps them all.

Satellite differentiates with other advantages over cable. NFLST, more Spanish and other language channels, more sports packages, more HD channels in general, etc, etc.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Satellite is more reliable than cable.


Without some data to back up that claim, I am highly suspicious of it. My parents and I have both had satellite and cable over the years and found cable TV to be far more reliable. That said, I didn't find rain outages with either Dish or DirecTV to be deal-killers. But still, weather does negatively affect satellite reception at least occasionally for lots of people (which is why you have cable companies mentioning it in their ads).


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Bigg said:


> It's about defaults, pricing, and bundling. Satellite is more reliable than cable, although FIOS trumps them all.
> 
> Satellite differentiates with other advantages over cable. NFLST, more Spanish and other language channels, more sports packages, more HD channels in general, etc, etc.





NashGuy said:


> Without some data to back up that claim, I am highly suspicious of it. My parents and I have both had satellite and cable over the years and found cable TV to be far more reliable. That said, I didn't find rain outages with either Dish or DirecTV to be deal-killers. But still, weather does negatively affect satellite reception at least occasionally for lots of people (which is why you have cable companies mentioning it in their ads).


Yes. I've never known anyone(including myself) that has had cable and satellite that would say satellite is more reliable.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> There are far fewer satellite customers than cable customers. A big reason is because people don't want dishes. Or can't have them. There are lots of places that the rules you are quoting don't work. Apartments without balconies as an example.
> 
> And I wasn't talking about forced standards, I was talking about standards the people living in places want.


You do realize that DirecTV is the largest MSO in the country (now that they have merged with AT&T)? Dish Network is #4. Between them they have roughly 44 million subscribers. Meanwhile there are roughly 60 million cable subscribers across all providers. While 44 million is fewer than 60 million, I don't think you can characterize it as "far fewer." NONE of these companies are growing...at best they just trade customers back and forth. And when you consider that anyone who lives in an apartment without southern exposure would find satellite reception challenging, the numbers are even more impressive.



NashGuy said:


> Without some data to back up that claim, I am highly suspicious of it. My parents and I have both had satellite and cable over the years and found cable TV to be far more reliable. That said, I didn't find rain outages with either Dish or DirecTV to be deal-killers. But still, weather does negatively affect satellite reception at least occasionally for lots of people (which is why you have cable companies mentioning it in their ads).


DirecTV routinely achieves a 99.999% reliability rating, which is superior to most, if not all, cable operators. That still translates into about 8 hours of signal outage per year. The difference is that satellite outages (99% of which are weather related) generally come in 20 or 30 minute chunks during major thunderstorms. Cable outages are usually much longer, each lasting hours (or sometimes days). When we had DirecTV we would have about 3 or 4 thunderstorm-related outages per year, each lasting 30 minutes or less, or about 2 hours a year. In the 2 years we have had Verizon FiOS we have two outages - one lasting 3 hours and one lasting 1 hour (both due to equipment failures outside our home). So for us, they have been of equal reliability.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> Yes. I've never known anyone(including myself) that has had cable and satellite that would say satellite is more reliable.


It was much more reliable for me. Our crappy Oceanic TWC service here constantly dumps Internet, tuning adapter and cablecard without warning, either singly or in combinations thereof. If it weren't for the higher prices and TiVo I'd be back on directv in a New York minute!


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

At least some of my channels would go out almost every single time it rained with both DirecTV and Dish. Both checked and said my installation was fine, my dish was peaked and I had excellent signal strength in good weather. My parents, who have only had Dish, have more than 3 or 4 rain outages per year but fewer than I used to have.

From what I can find online, DirecTV has mentioned "99% signal reliability" in their ads and marketing/support copy. I can't find any claim of a 99.999% reliability for them, although perhaps it's out there.

https://support.directv.com/app/ans...oes-the-directv-signal-go-out-in-bad-weather?

The difference between 99% and 99.999% reliability is 87.5 hours per year in uptime. I can honestly believe that I had 99% signal reliability with DirecTV but not 99.999%. (Obviously, different people will have different experiences and I may be an outlier.)


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

In all fairness, my area has to use the 1.1 meter dish in order to get good signal levels way out here in the middle of the pacific. It also points way down on the elevation so I think all things being equal we probably pickup about the same power levels as someone on the mainland with the smaller oval dishes.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

DirecTV promises 99.9% reliability (see this brochure as an example; http://www.directv.com/cms2/commercial/mdu/residents/q410_ProgBrochure.pdf).

However, most customers achieve 99.999%, or about 8 hours of outage per year. Most cable systems do not quote any relaibility figures, however I know from my work with Comcast (I work for one of their vendors) that they are striving for 99% (as recently as mid-last year they were at 97.8%). About the only thing that stops a satellite signal from reaching the dish is heavy rain in the signal path (water absorbs the microwaves that satellites transmit on). Cable can be effected by weather too (the cable head end gets their signal from satellites too) but also fires, automobile accidents, floods, earthquakes, etc. Basically, sending a signal over miles of cable with numerous splices, repeaters and amplifiers has more points of failure, and greater chance of failure, than broadcasting over microwaves from GEO.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

HarperVision said:


> In all fairness, my area has to use the 1.1 meter dish in order to get good signal levels way out here in the middle of the pacific. It also points way down on the elevation so I think all things being equal we probably pickup about the same power levels as someone on the mainland with the smaller oval dishes.


Sure, Hawaii has always needed the meter+ dishes. The satellites used by DirecTV are basically over the Rocky Mountains. That provides reasonably good look angles from the CONUS and Caribbean, but VERY low angles from Alaska and Hawaii. Because of those low angles you "look" through more atmosphere, which means more water vapor, which means more signal attenuation. To compensate, you use a bigger dish, yielding more gain.

I should also point out that the situation for Dish Network is quite different. Since they failed to acquired additional satellite capacity near their original service locations (110 and 119 degrees WL) they have leased additional capacity at different locations so that they can support HD. This in turn has lead them to have two complete sets of satellites, both transmitting the same content, from two different arcs in the sky. The Western arc has newer, more powerful, satellites and so provides a more rain-fade resistant signal. The Eastern arc is made up of older, less powerful, satellites and rain fade is more severe for those served by that arc.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Diana Collins said:


> DirecTV promises 99.9% reliability (see this brochure as an example; http://www.directv.com/cms2/commercial/mdu/residents/q410_ProgBrochure.pdf).


Thanks. I did notice that brochure is from 2010 while the "99%" figure I linked to is what's currently on their website, although perhaps they're still publicly stating 99.9% in some places.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Diana Collins said:


> Sure, Hawaii has always needed the meter+ dishes. The satellites used by DirecTV are basically over the Rocky Mountains. That provides reasonably good look angles from the CONUS and Caribbean, but VERY low angles from Alaska and Hawaii. Because of those low angles you "look" through more atmosphere, which means more water vapor, which means more signal attenuation. To compensate, you use a bigger dish, yielding more gain. .......


Yep, that's what I'm saying.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> Thanks. I did notice that brochure is from 2010 while the "99%" figure I linked to is what's currently on their website, although perhaps they're still publicly stating 99.9% in some places.


Well, the only thing that has changed since 2010 is that they have launched 3 new, higher power, Ka satellites. So unless global warming has started to effect satellite reception in a measurable way, their reliability rating should be the same. Most likely, it was a marketing change, not a technical one.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

HarperVision said:


> It was much more reliable for me. Our crappy Oceanic TWC service here constantly dumps Internet, tuning adapter and cablecard without warning, either singly or in combinations thereof. If it weren't for the higher prices and TiVo I'd be back on directv in a New York minute!


Agreed!

Directv is the best MSO hands down (at least for me). In terms of reliability, quality of product, and customer service.

I have dealt with Cox, Comcast, Dish and Verizon, so my pool is not huge...


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Diana Collins said:


> Well, the only thing that has changed since 2010 is that they have launched 3 new, higher power, Ka satellites. So unless global warming has started to effect satellite reception in a measurable way, their reliability rating should be the same. Most likely, it was a marketing change, not a technical one.


Ha! Fair enough.  Perhaps my family had atypically high reliability over the years from cable and atypically poor reliability from satellite. I will say that DirecTV was more reliable for me than Dish...


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Without some data to back up that claim, I am highly suspicious of it. My parents and I have both had satellite and cable over the years and found cable TV to be far more reliable. That said, I didn't find rain outages with either Dish or DirecTV to be deal-killers. But still, weather does negatively affect satellite reception at least occasionally for lots of people (which is why you have cable companies mentioning it in their ads).


If the dish is properly mounted with a three-point mount screwed into solid structure, and it's aligned properly, it shouldn't have much rain fade. Cable can, and does just go out for no reason at all.



aaronwt said:


> Yes. I've never known anyone(including myself) that has had cable and satellite that would say satellite is more reliable.


I've heard anecdotally that DirecTV is absolutely rock solid, and I know cable goes out once in a while. Also, after a big storm, if all your wires are down or your node has no power, you're hosed with cable. If you have DirecTV, a standby generator, and propane tanks, you're good to receive signals from the satellites, and get internet through diesel or propane backed-up LTE sites.



Diana Collins said:


> While 44 million is fewer than 60 million, I don't think you can characterize it as "far fewer." NONE of these companies are growing...at best they just trade customers back and forth. And when you consider that anyone who lives in an apartment without southern exposure would find satellite reception challenging, the numbers are even more impressive.


I would agree. Especially when you consider how far the cards are stacked against DirecTV in terms of internet bundling options. The number of people in large MDUs must be far larger than the rural population that doesn't have access to cable.



Diana Collins said:


> Most cable systems do not quote any relaibility figures, however I know from my work with Comcast (I work for one of their vendors) that they are striving for 99% (as recently as mid-last year they were at 97.8%).


LOL. Even I wouldn't have guessed it was that low!! That's pathetic not to be pushing 9's.



Diana Collins said:


> The Eastern arc is made up of older, less powerful, satellites and rain fade is more severe for those served by that arc.


Very interesting. I didn't know that. Wouldn't it be somewhat offset in the Northeast because the angle is so much higher than for DirecTV? DirecTV is around a 30 degree angle on their main 3 satellite arc, whereas DISH is around 40 degrees. Not that I care, since DISH doesn't compete in NY/CT, but it's just interesting. Although in CT DirecTV is overwhelmingly more popular than DISH, I'm still shocked how many DISH dishes I see considering that they don't carry any of our channels or teams.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Bigg said:


> If the dish is properly mounted with a three-point mount screwed into solid structure, and it's aligned properly, it shouldn't have much rain fade. Cable can, and does just go out for no reason at all.
> 
> I've heard anecdotally that DirecTV is absolutely rock solid, and I know cable goes out once in a while. Also, after a big storm, if all your wires are down or your node has no power, you're hosed with cable. If you have DirecTV, a standby generator, and propane tanks, you're good to receive signals from the satellites, and get internet through diesel or propane backed-up LTE sites.
> 
> ...


We have several buildings with DirecTV in DC at the Federal agency I'm a contractor for. The dishes are on top of the building, mounted securely with no obstructions and a high signal strength. Anytime heavy rain comes from the south. Some of the channels go out and we get tons of complaints. It seems to happen quite a bit. I guess it seems worse because there are more outages over the course of a year.. While with cable the outages might be way fewer but might last longer. Personally I would rather have fewer outages that are longer than more outages with short durations. Plus around here with storms, they typically happen in the Afternoon or evening. So they affect more people. Than if an outage were to happen in the middle of the night,

When I had Comcast they were very solid. Easily Over 99.99% uptime. With FIOS I was easily over 99.999% uptime until I had a botched upgrade to the 150Mb/s tier. Which took me down for several days. Now I'm down to something around 99.99% uptime with FiOS.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

Bigg said:


> ...Very interesting. I didn't know that. Wouldn't it be somewhat offset in the Northeast because the angle is so much higher than for DirecTV? DirecTV is around a 30 degree angle on their main 3 satellite arc, whereas DISH is around 40 degrees. Not that I care, since DISH doesn't compete in NY/CT, but it's just interesting. Although in CT DirecTV is overwhelmingly more popular than DISH, I'm still shocked how many DISH dishes I see considering that they don't carry any of our channels or teams.


The angle helps a bit, but that is offset partially by the wide spread between satellites. With both satellite providers you need to receive from multiple satellites in different locations to get all the channels. For DirecTV all the core English language channels are on the satellites from 99 degrees to 103, only a 4 degree arc. Dish's Eastern Arc goes from 61.5 to 77, a spread of almost 16 degrees. It is easier to find a compromise dish geometry to focus a 4 degree spread on an LNB than it is to accommodate a 4 times wider spread. As a result, the gain of a Dish Network dish is less than an equivalent size DirecTV dish for the signal being received. Putting up 2 dishes helps, but not everyone will do that.


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## tenthplanet (Mar 5, 2004)

thyname said:


> Agreed!
> 
> Directv is the best MSO hands down (at least for me). In terms of reliability, quality of product, and customer service.
> 
> I have dealt with Cox, Comcast, Dish and Verizon, so my pool is not huge...


 Also agreed. Everyone I know who has Direct TV loves it. Is it cheap no, most good things aren't.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> We have several buildings with DirecTV in DC at the Federal agency I'm a contractor for. The dishes are on top of the building, mounted securely with no obstructions and a high signal strength. Anytime heavy rain comes from the south. Some of the channels go out and we get tons of complaints. It seems to happen quite a bit. I guess it seems worse because there are more outages over the course of a year.. While with cable the outages might be way fewer but might last longer. Personally I would rather have fewer outages that are longer than more outages with short durations. Plus around here with storms, they typically happen in the Afternoon or evening. So they affect more people. Than if an outage were to happen in the middle of the night


That shouldn't be happening with properly aimed dishes. One of my co-workers watched TV straight through on the hurricanes with 90mph winds hitting the apartment he lived in, which overlooked the river.



Diana Collins said:


> The angle helps a bit, but that is offset partially by the wide spread between satellites. With both satellite providers you need to receive from multiple satellites in different locations to get all the channels. For DirecTV all the core English language channels are on the satellites from 99 degrees to 103, only a 4 degree arc. Dish's Eastern Arc goes from 61.5 to 77, a spread of almost 16 degrees. It is easier to find a compromise dish geometry to focus a 4 degree spread on an LNB than it is to accommodate a 4 times wider spread. As a result, the gain of a Dish Network dish is less than an equivalent size DirecTV dish for the signal being received. Putting up 2 dishes helps, but not everyone will do that.


Interesting. Individual dishes will help even though they are smaller? WA has a 19 degree spread, so the higher power satellites make up for that? There is a really weird one in my complex. It's a WA 1000.2 plus a SuperDISH. Beats me how they ended up with that one, we're an EA market, 129 is really low for us.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

That two dish set-up is probably old. The WA was the original location (they started at 110 & 119, adding 129 much later). So they are probably getting their core channels from the WA and have the Superdish for 105/110/119 (I think 129 carries the locals and 105 some niche programming). The installer probably did it to save the need for a bigger switch.

The multi-slot dishes are kludges - you can't build a reflector pan that optimizes the focusing of the signals from 3 different locations. They accept a poorly focused beam to avoid the need for multiple dishes. As a result, a portion of the signal misses the LNB entirely, being smeared into an oval footprint. To compensate, they use larger pans (horizontally, since that's where the lack of focus occurs) for more gain. But mono-focus dishes are more efficient and provide more gain for a given reflector size.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Bigg said:


> That shouldn't be happening with properly aimed dishes. One of my co-workers watched TV straight through on the hurricanes with 90mph winds hitting the apartment he lived in, which overlooked the river.
> 
> Interesting. Individual dishes will help even though they are smaller? WA has a 19 degree spread, so the higher power satellites make up for that? There is a really weird one in my complex. It's a WA 1000.2 plus a SuperDISH. Beats me how they ended up with that one, we're an EA market, 129 is really low for us.


I've never heard of that happening here. But only because many strong Rains like that come from the South around here. At home I always knew when we would be getting heavy rain. because many of the satellite channels would go out ten minutes prior. But usually by the time the heavy rain arrived the signal was back up.

At work the dishes are properly pointed and get a very strong signal overall.

When the rains come from the west there aren't typically issues around here.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

aaronwt said:


> I've never heard of that happening here. But only because many strong Rains like that come from the South around here. At home I always knew when we would be getting heavy rain. because many of the satellite channels would go out ten minutes prior. But usually by the time the heavy rain arrived the signal was back up.
> 
> At work the dishes are properly pointed and get a very strong signal overall.
> 
> When the rains come from the west there aren't typically issues around here.


Here in Nashville, rain and storms often come from the southwest, more or less the direction my Dish and DirecTV dishes pointed. Sometimes my channels would go out before it even started raining at my house and by the time the worst of the rain was overhead, some of the channels may start coming back. But it was honestly very rare for me to have rain at all without at least *some* reception problems, typically full signal loss for awhile with Dish.

And I think you're onto something about users' _perception_ of reliability of satellite versus cable. If satellite tends to go out fairly often for short periods due to weather while cable tends to go out less frequently but for longer periods of time (like electrical service), it's possible that satellite could have greater uptime but _seem_ less reliable.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

NashGuy said:


> Here in Nashville, rain and storms often come from the southwest, more or less the direction my Dish and DirecTV dishes pointed. Sometimes my channels would go out before it even started raining at my house and by the time the worst of the rain was overhead, some of the channels may start coming back. But it was honestly very rare for me to have rain at all without at least *some* reception problems, typically full signal loss for awhile with Dish.
> 
> And I think you're onto something about users' _perception_ of reliability of satellite versus cable. If satellite tends to go out fairly often for short periods due to weather while cable tends to go out less frequently but for longer periods of time (like electrical service), it's possible that satellite could have greater uptime but _seem_ less reliable.


Normally the cable co will bring down the system for cable maintenance late at night like 2 am, most recording is not done at that time, satellite going out via weather can happen anytime, so you may miss part of a program you are recording, and not know it until you go to watch the program sometime in the future, I would find that a pain. This type of outage has never happened on my cable system except for the 2011 storm that took most power and cable out for a week in the Hartford CT area.


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