# Bye Bye AT&T Uverse TV



## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

according to a story on Bloomberg this morning, AT&T is shutting down their Uverse TV service and moving the customers to Directv. 

I cannot find it anywhere online yet, but Bloomberg's Vonnie Quinn reported it in the 7;45AM ET News Update. 

This is clearly a change from last Fall, when all reports were the DirecTV equipment would move towards the Uverse based platform. 

Although that could still happen, it seems like a long shot now.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Wow. 

They are going to lose customers in their geographic area who don't have line of sight?


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

TonyD79 said:


> Wow.
> 
> They are going to lose customers in their geographic area who don't have line of sight?


Sounds strange I admit. Would make sense to keep it as another option.

However AT&T has been talking about using wireless system for video distribution for the last year. Seems like a big waste of cellular bandwidth while all the companies are claiming spectrum shortage.

Perhaps that is why all the 5G testing in Austin later this year announcements earlier this month.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Found it:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-on-u-verse-as-it-pushes-users-toward-directv


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Perhaps that is why all the 5G testing in Austin later this year announcements earlier this month.


The problem with 5G wireless is the super-high frequency. Hardly any range and almost no ability to penetrate structures, necessitating both extreme cell density and very high transmit power. You can't deploy it in any but the biggest markets because of the cost of buildout. I find it difficult to believe AT&T would think that abandoning its wireline infrastructure and replacing it with 5G would be cheaper than a proper upgrade of U-Verse to fiber.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Called it!


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> Called it!


You're a man of integrity in both universes!


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

Dan203 said:


> Called it!


Note the reference to Home Gateway within the next 3 years


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

mdavej said:


> Found it:
> 
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/at-t-takes-u-turn-on-u-verse-as-it-pushes-users-toward-directv





> Current U-verse subscribers will be able to retain the service, and AT&T is even offering new promotions to those who keep it. But new customers are being directed by its marketing department to choose the satellite package.


I will not go back. They better make any replace deal insanely great. My 2nd choice from Uverse will be cutting the cord.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Note the reference to Home Gateway within the next 3 years


I saw that. Since they're going to do a gateway anyway might as well be an AllVid gateway.


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## BRiT wtfdotcom (Dec 17, 2015)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> according to a story on Bloomberg this morning, AT&T is shutting down their Uverse TV service and moving the customers to Directv.
> 
> I cannot find it anywhere online yet, but Bloomberg's Vonnie Quinn reported it in the 7;45AM ET News Update.
> 
> This is clearly a change from last Fall, when all reports were the DirecTV equipment would move towards the Uverse based platform.


Maybe the finally realized their AT&T Broadband is absolutely horrible and doesnt offer enough bandwidth for current HD DirectTV signals.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

According to the article it's a money thing. Apparently DirecTV was able to negotiate better programming deals then they could and by switching people to DirecTV they can save $17 per customer on content licensing. I'm sure they'll continue to charge the same price though and just pocket that extra $17/user.


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## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

I guess it's good then that they sold off Uverse here in CT for Frontier. Not sure I would ever go to Frontier but at least it's an extra option for people.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

Dan203 said:


> According to the article it's a money thing. Apparently DirecTV was able to negotiate better programming deals then they could and by switching people to DirecTV they can save $17 per customer on content licensing. I'm sure they'll continue to charge the same price though and just pocket that extra $17/user.


21M subs for DTV vs how few Million UVerse had, I am sure DTV had better rates.

However I would think that AT&T could have absorbed those rates without shutting down Uverse.

In reality, AT&T is the surviving entity, so if anything like that was not possible, the AT&T rates should have prevailed.

Surely they knew all this on Day 1 of due diligence.

Smells like something else and they are just using this as excuse, as again, multiple sources said Directv would be moving to Uverse Equipment platform.


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## Brad Bishop (Sep 11, 2001)

It's kind of interesting to me how AT&T has played in the telecommunications industry, especially for an entity that is (was?) a giant.

They've:
- Bought local cable companies (MediaOne in Atlanta, for example).
- Shortly after left the traditional cable industry.
- Made huge promises with Uverse which never seemed to pan out. People I know who've had it weren't impressed.
- Bought DirecTV
- Now are getting out of Uverse.

It's just weird when you think of them as a traditional telecommunications giant that they seem to be floundering on this when you'd expect them to be leading.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

They're stalling until they can build out their fiber to the home network. That's the only way they'll ever be able to truly compete with cable. For now they're using bridge technologies to keep them afloat until they can get to that point.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

Brad Bishop said:


> It's kind of interesting to me how AT&T has played in the telecommunications industry, especially for an entity that is (was?) a giant.
> 
> They've:
> - Bought local cable companies (MediaOne in Atlanta, for example).
> ...


Remember this AT&T has no relationship with the AT&T of old.

And yes, the PQ over DSL sucked


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

Dan203 said:


> They're stalling until they can build out their fiber to the home network. That's the only way they'll ever be able to truly compete with cable. For now they're using bridge technologies to keep them afloat until they can get to that point.


That's why this is so strange about this in my mind. They supposedly had put in fiber to so much of their network thus far.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> That's why this is so strange about this in my mind. They supposedly had put in fiber to so much of their network thus far.


Yes but it's not last-mile fiber which is why in my area U-Verse maxes out at about 45/6 for its biggest non-gigabit tier. Not very competitive with Comcast at 50/10 for its _slowest_ regular tier (I have 75/10 but SE FL is way behind a lot of Comcast markets where the same tier is 105/10 or 150/10).


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

http://www.fiercecable.com/story/at...top-production-latest-directv-push/2016-02-16

AT&T (NYSE: T) has stopped manufacturing set-top boxes for its U-verse pay-TV service and is looking to migrate all of its video customers to its DirecTV platform, according to Bloomberg.

The move, the news service said, comes as AT&T is trying to - within the next three years - deliver all of its home services through a unified gateway.

An AT&T rep gave this statement: "To realize the many benefits of our DirecTV acquisition, we are leading our video marketing approach with DirecTV. However, our first priority is to listen to our customers and meet their needs, and if we determine a customer will be better served with the U-verse product, we offer attractive and compelling options."

AT&T added 214,000 DirecTV customers in the fourth quarter, but shed 240,000 U-verse video subscribers during the period.

"The DirecTV subscriber additions were stronger than expected &#8230; but the U-verse losses were much worse," said MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett, summing up AT&T's fourth quarter pay-TV performance.

"Financially, this is a good trade; a big reason AT&T [acquired DirecTV] was to get out from under burdensome programming costs that plague U-verse. Still, this result is, in aggregate, a clear disappointment," Moffett added.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said AT&T is still getting its "legs under it" for selling and installing DirecTV. "We don't even have our installation work force up to full speed," he said.

He added that the relationship between DirecTV and U-verse subscriber growth will get better.

"We're doing some things to shore up the U-verse base," he said. "We are focused on the satellite product &#8230; But we did some things on pricing to help mitigate the U-verse churn."

Specifically, Stephenson said AT&T tied unlimited wireless plans to U-verse in promotions.

For more:
- read this Bloomberg story
- read this Multichannel News story


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

If they can properly merge the services and offer a better VOD experience on DirecTV using the UVerse architecture I think this will be a good move. It would allow them to better compete with cable then either service on it's own can.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

Dan203 said:


> If they can properly merge the services and offer a better VOD experience on DirecTV using the UVerse architecture I think this will be a good move. It would allow them to better compete with cable then either service on it's own can.


According to this, hardware cost are cheaper on Directv as well

http://adage.com/article/digital/t-takes-u-turn-u-verse-pushes-users-directv/302689/


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> They're stalling until they can build out their fiber to the home network. That's the only way they'll ever be able to truly compete with cable. For now they're using bridge technologies to keep them afloat until they can get to that point.


Even their moves in that arena are schizophrenic. The announced they were going to install Gigapower in my city after Google Fiber said they were coming to town, did a few neighborhoods, then quietly cancelled all their other permits. The sad part of that is they actually stole a lot of customers from TWC which is terribly overpriced around here.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Yep article says something about moving to fiber to the home although not all homes will get fiber. IT sounds like those homes that don't get fiber will get a hub that gets its signals from copper, satellite and wireless.

And customers that already have U-verse can stay on Uverse if they want. CSRs will try and steer new customers to DTV. IT didn't say if new customers could still beg their way to Uverse or not.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Remember this AT&T has no relationship with the AT&T of old.
> 
> And yes, the PQ over DSL sucked


Other then the new bought up most of the old, your right nothing.

just as much as Verizon has nothing to do with the old ATT. They bought the other half just about. So when ATT was broken up into what 20 something companies they are back to 3.

I will say yes there are some others but that was because the other 3 didn't want what the few new companies have. Frontier is one that comes to mind.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

joewom said:


> Other then the new bought up most of the old, your right nothing.
> 
> just as much as Verizon has nothing to do with the old ATT. They bought the other half just about. So when ATT was broken up into what 20 something companies they are back to 3.
> 
> I will say yes there are some others but that was because the other 3 didn't want what the few new companies have. Frontier is one that comes to mind.


No, going by memory, Craig Macaw had started buying all the independent cellular non-telco A systems in the late 80s or early 90s, most called Cellular One, and he purchased a Cellular B landline system that the remains of a Baby Bell had (maybe Pacbell?) and had some the old loose connection to AT&T.

That Company ended up dropping the Cellular One and AT&T branding, moved to Atlanta and changed their name to Cingular. Then a small company in Texas (SBC?) purchased them from McCaw and later changed the name to AT&T.

SBC was telco, so their landlines became AT&T. Then they rolled out Uverse etc

Or something like that to where AT&T today has essentially no connection to AT&T of the past.

I can be wrong in the mergers and buyouts, but know there is hardly any connection now between new and old.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

This is not the end of U-Verse. It means that they will try and push DirecTV over U-Verse, not that they are going to get rid of U-Verse entirely. If U-Verse has a declining number of users, the existing base of hardware will last a long time, and they can easily order another round of it if they need to. They are just pushing their subscribers that can be pushed over to DirecTV. DirecTV is a far superior service anyway.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

Bigg said:


> This is not the end of U-Verse. It means that they will try and push DirecTV over U-Verse, not that they are going to get rid of U-Verse entirely. If U-Verse has a declining number of users, the existing base of hardware will last a long time, and they can easily order another round of it if they need to. They are just pushing their subscribers that can be pushed over to DirecTV. DirecTV is a far superior service anyway.


Yes, but it is stated they stopped making consumer equipment for it.

That will be an issue at some point.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> No, going by memory, Craig Macaw had started buying all the independent cellular non-telco A systems in the late 80s or early 90s, most called Cellular One, and he purchased a Cellular B landline system that the remains of a Baby Bell had (maybe Pacbell?) and had some the old loose connection to AT&T.
> 
> That Company ended up dropping the Cellular One and AT&T branding, moved to Atlanta and changed their name to Cingular. Then a small company in Texas (SBC?) purchased them from McCaw and later changed the name to AT&T.
> 
> ...


I'll look but I read allot on the breakup and mergers as this was interesting to me. In the end there was only 3 telcos left. Quest, Verizon, and att. After they didn't want copper this spun off others recently. However att has the company that was att wireless then sold then bought again. Along with many others. Verizon has many companies that were bell. My first cell phone was from nynex in nj. I believe that was bought by bell altantic which in turn was merged with others to form what Verizon is today. They all have ties from att of the past. It's is really interesting to read about it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT&T_Corporation

SBC was a baby bell which was att at one point. If you haven't read up on it I encourage it has it's truly amazing to see how it all went!

Edit: I hate writing from my cell phone! Auto correct is a pain sometimes and I can't see all I write lol


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> ...That Company ended up dropping the Cellular One and AT&T branding, moved to Atlanta and changed their name to Cingular. Then a small company in Texas (SBC?) purchased them from McCaw and later changed the name to AT&T.
> 
> SBC was telco, so their landlines became AT&T. Then they rolled out Uverse etc
> 
> ...


 What is AT&T now is more than anything SBC. SBC took the AT&T name for the T stock symbol, history and brand awareness.

AT&T Wireless NOW is what was Cingular, which was a joint venture of SBC (Cingular One) and Bell South. SBC merged with Bell South.

UVerse was always AT&T UVerse from the merged company.

What's left of the 7 Bells? NEW AT&T [AT&T, SW Bell/SBC, Pacific Bell, Ameritech (Illinois Bell, Michigan Bell, Indiana Bell, Ohio Bell), Bell South, New England Telephone, Directv], Qwest (Nevada Bell), Verizon which was NY Telephone or Nynex, Cincinnati Bell (which is the tiny one.)

AGAIN, AT&T has not said it would be converting existing UVerse customers to Directv. You just won't be able to get a new UVerse install.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

MikeAndrews said:


> What is AT&T now is more than anything SBC. SBC took the AT&T name for the T stock symbol, history and brand awareness. AT&T Wireless NOW is what was Cingular, which was a joint venture of SBC (Cingular One) and Bell South. SBC merged with Bell South. UVerse was always AT&T UVerse from the merged company. What's left of the 7 Bells? NEW AT&T [AT&T, SW Bell/SBC, Pacific Bell, Ameritech (Illinois Bell, Michigan Bell, Indiana Bell, Ohio Bell), Bell South, New England Telephone, Directv], Qwest (Nevada Bell), Verizon which was NY Telephone or Nynex, Cincinnati Bell (which is the tiny one.) AGAIN, AT&T has not said it would be converting existing UVerse customers to Directv. You just won't be able to get a new UVerse install.


Which is interesting since they installed fiber in our city last year. Does that mean the fiber is for Internet only or is it called something else.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

MikeAndrews said:


> What is AT&T now is more than anything SBC. SBC took the AT&T name for the T stock symbol, history and brand awareness.
> 
> AT&T Wireless NOW is what was Cingular, which was a joint venture of SBC (Cingular One) and Bell South. SBC merged with Bell South.
> 
> ...


Don't forget Verizon has nj bell Virginia bell I believe that formed bell Atlantic. Lol it's all crazy but in the end they did nothing to prevent monopolies. Some could argue with wireless they are bigger and control more then the original att ever did! And now one has the largest satellite provider. Well there really is only 2 unless you count the few big dish customers. You don't see too many of them anymore.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

zalusky said:


> Which is interesting since they installed fiber in our city last year. Does that mean the fiber is for Internet only or is it called something else.


It's only been about a year since they started offering it here too. Although here it's fiber to the curb and copper to the home, for 45/6 max. Apparently they're working on fiber to the home (i.e. Gigapower) up in Reno though.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

Dan203 said:


> It's only been about a year since they started offering it here too. Although here it's fiber to the curb and copper to the home, for 45/6 max. Apparently they're working on fiber to the home (i.e. Gigapower) up in Reno though.


Is it 45 max bandwidth? Someone I know said their internet slowed down if two tvs were watching hd. As they took about 4-6 Mbs per tv. That was when uverse was just beginning so it may have changed now.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah the 45Mbps includes video. So for every channel you're watching/recording it drops by about 6Mbps. You can only ever watch/record 4 channels at a time, so you always have about 1/2 your bandwidth available for internet.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

MikeAndrews said:


> What is AT&T now is more than anything SBC. SBC took the AT&T name for the T stock symbol, history and brand awareness.


Then doesn't that mean that SomeRandomIdiot's statement of "Remember this AT&T has no relationship with the AT&T of old." is incorrect?

Isn't/wasn't SBC one of the Baby Bells (or at least a direct connection to) created from the original AT&T? Which then swallowed up some more of the Baby Bells?

So I thought in effect, AT&T was blown into a zillion companies, and over a long period since then, a *couple* of them (definitely far from all) have essentially merged back together, to be called AT&T now...

So definitely different, but at least related.. Much closer than e.g. other companies buying the rights to call their electronics Panasonic or RCA, both of which have happened.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

mattack said:


> Then doesn't that mean that SomeRandomIdiot's statement of "Remember this AT&T has no relationship with the AT&T of old." is incorrect?
> 
> Isn't/wasn't SBC one of the Baby Bells (or at least a direct connection to) created from the original AT&T? Which then swallowed up some more of the Baby Bells?
> 
> ...


Yes I said as much or tried to explain that in my reply.


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## murgatroyd (Jan 6, 2002)

mattack said:


> Then doesn't that mean that SomeRandomIdiot's statement of "Remember this AT&T has no relationship with the AT&T of old." is incorrect?
> 
> Isn't/wasn't SBC one of the Baby Bells (or at least a direct connection to) created from the original AT&T? Which then swallowed up some more of the Baby Bells?


Yes, but SBC was one of the more incompetent ones, so all of the good bits of AT&T that remained got shoved out the airlock.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

murgatroyd said:


> Yes, but SBC was one of the more incompetent ones, so all of the good bits of AT&T that remained got shoved out the airlock.


They had good bits?


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## Series3Sub (Mar 14, 2010)

Totally expected this move. Never made economic sense to have two networks. It was always going to be one or the other. Uverse was such a HORRIBLE product, and this why AT&T bought DirecTV in the first place (they also considered buying Dish--they knew they had to buy one or the other to stay in the MVPD business). Far easier to move the puny number of Uverse customers to the superior DirecTV service. I just expected them to do it a lot sooner than waiting this long and blowing all that money on the losing Uverse.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

Series3Sub said:


> Totally expected this move. Never made economic sense to have two networks. It was always going to be one or the other. Uverse was such a HORRIBLE product, and this why AT&T bought DirecTV in the first place (they also considered buying Dish--they knew they had to buy one or the other to stay in the MVPD business). Far easier to move the puny number of Uverse customers to the superior DirecTV service. I just expected them to do it a lot sooner than waiting this long and blowing all that money on the losing Uverse.


Why did they need to stay in the business. Its a declining business that is saturated. Once they un-bundle channels which is coming I am sure it will be the demise of cand dish tv service as we know it. The cable co at least are an ISP. You can't deliver internet via cable fast enough or have the bandwidth to be viable competition. Yes this is speculation verizon is looking at Dish. I would be surprised if they do. The money spent on Directv could have been used for wireless or fiber to the home. Which is the only future proof method to deliver what you want to a home.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

They're trying to compete with cable. To do that they need video service so they can offer a similar "tripple play" bundle. By using DirecTV for the video portion they can dedicate the bandwidth of the VDSL service to internet, which allows them to better compete with the speeds of cable internet. 

If they did nothing then their existing home service would dry up and they would never get their money back on all the fiber/copper they've laid over the years.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Yes, but it is stated they stopped making consumer equipment for it.
> 
> That will be an issue at some point.


It's pretty standard stuff with AT&T's software and stickers on it. They could order more at any point easily. And they probably figure that they have quite a while left on the existing stock of equipment once they start pulling boxes back from DirecTV conversions.



zalusky said:


> Which is interesting since they installed fiber in our city last year. Does that mean the fiber is for Internet only or is it called something else.


Most likely, yes. They will want to leverage DirecTV's contracts as hard as possible, and deliver VOD and internet via the fiber. They may still offer TV just to be competitive in MDUs and other places where they can't put dishes in, but it will be expensive.

I wonder if their contracts would allow them to offer DirecTV service over fiber? They already have an IP-based system for MDUs with a central dish. It wouldn't be hard to adapt that to FTTH, with 1m dishes at each CO to pick the satellite signals up. Would be a really interesting play if they can pull it off contractually.



Dan203 said:


> Yeah the 45Mbps includes video. So for every channel you're watching/recording it drops by about 6Mbps. You can only ever watch/record 4 channels at a time, so you always have about 1/2 your bandwidth available for internet.


If it's 45mbps, the actual provisioning is quite a bit higher, so the video doesn't eat into your internet right off the bat, but yes, it does start to if you have multiple HD channels recording or watching. It's still a pretty pathetic system that's basically the modern day equivalent of bubble gum, duct tape, and a shoe string.



Dan203 said:


> They're trying to compete with cable. To do that they need video service so they can offer a similar "tripple play" bundle. By using DirecTV for the video portion they can dedicate the bandwidth of the VDSL service to internet, which allows them to better compete with the speeds of cable internet.
> 
> If they did nothing then their existing home service would dry up and they would never get their money back on all the fiber/copper they've laid over the years.


Yeah, that's going to be their push. Unfortunately, they not only bet wrong with VDSL over FTTH, but they didn't push the fiber out far enough with VDSL, and they haven't been aggressive enough in upgrading the VDSL infrastructure to be competitive to cable. In many cases, cable has fiber closer than AT&T does, it just doesn't matter, since the coax isn't distance sensitive.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Is there any DSL technology that actually uses the full bandwith of the copper including the audible frequencies? Like the old ISDN lines did, where it used telephone cable but you couldn't use the same line for both voice and data at the same time? Seems like these days they could just use the full line for data and use VOIP for voice instead of only using the higher inaudible frequencies for data and wasting the rest on POTS


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## tenthplanet (Mar 5, 2004)

Since there are a lot of people not able to have a satellite dish, ATT can't push too hard lest cable co.'s pick up those customers. And don't forget the internet only U-Verse users.
And lastly, U-Verse and Direct TV don't work with Tivos anyway. And the train pulls out of FUD ville....


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

mattack said:


> Then doesn't that mean that SomeRandomIdiot's statement of "Remember this AT&T has no relationship with the AT&T of old." is incorrect?
> 
> Isn't/wasn't SBC one of the Baby Bells (or at least a direct connection to) created from the original AT&T? Which then swallowed up some more of the Baby Bells?
> 
> ...


As it is now AT&T is actually a conglomerate of disparate companies. For instance, local wireline business is actually BellSouth, doing business as AT&T. BellSouth itself was the combination of Southern Bell and South Central Bell. There isn't just 1 AT&T like people like to think there is. There is a complicated mesh of ownership, and employees at different locations and lines of business work for different companies with different tax IDs. It is amazing such a mess actually makes any money.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

ncted said:


> As it is now AT&T is actually a conglomerate of disparate companies. For instance, local wireline business is actually BellSouth, doing business as AT&T. BellSouth itself was the combination of Southern Bell and South Central Bell. There isn't just 1 AT&T like people like to think there is. There is a complicated mesh of ownership, and employees at different locations and lines of business work for different companies with different tax IDs. It is amazing such a mess actually makes any money.


It is one company with subsidiaries (yes merged with a crap load of companies. its like FEDEX. One company but ran as separate entities like Air, ground, home and freight.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

zalusky said:


> Which is interesting since they installed fiber in our city last year. Does that mean the fiber is for Internet only or is it called something else.


It's for AT&T GigaPower Internet.

https://www.att.com/shop/u-verse/gigapower.html

But it is called _U-Verse_ Gigapower. The product separation may come anon.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

ncted said:


> As it is now AT&T is actually a conglomerate of disparate companies. For instance, local wireline business is actually BellSouth, doing business as AT&T. BellSouth itself was the combination of Southern Bell and South Central Bell. There isn't just 1 AT&T like people like to think there is. There is a complicated mesh of ownership, and employees at different locations and lines of business work for different companies with different tax IDs. It is amazing such a mess actually makes any money.


Nottany more. There are a handful of AT&T corporations, but that's mainly because regulations of local lines by states vs. "Long distance." (Remember that?)

Bell South was only local in the south and part of Cingular wireless and was the last baby bell that was absorbed shortly after the remains of AT&T were added _by SBC._


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

MikeAndrews said:


> Nottany more. There are a handful of AT&T corporations, but that's mainly because regulations of local lines by states vs. "Long distance." (Remember that?)
> 
> Bell South was only local in the south and part of Cingular wireless and was the last baby bell that was absorbed shortly after the remains of AT&T were added _by SBC._


Yes. Still. I get contracts and invoices which list the provider as BellSouth d/b/a AT&T for ethernet service and business landlines. I wish I didn't. They are terrible to deal with, but the only game in town in many places. They even still lobby as BellSouth:

http://www.secretary.state.nc.us/lobbyists/Principal.aspx?Pid=8140153

and deal with the FCC as BellSouth:

https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-331624A1.pdf


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

ncted said:


> Yes. Still. I get contracts and invoices which list the provider as BellSouth d/b/a AT&T for ethernet service and business landlines. I wish I didn't. They are terrible to deal with, but the only game in town in many places. They even still lobby as BellSouth:
> 
> http://www.secretary.state.nc.us/lobbyists/Principal.aspx?Pid=8140153
> 
> ...


Yes but its still all owned by one company. AT&T.


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

joewom said:


> Yes but its still all owned by one company. AT&T.


Sure. Nothing I said contradicts that. What I was saying is AT&T is not *run* as one big company. There are numerous smaller companies (all still pretty big individually), which don't always walk in lockstep, don't have the same policies and procedures, and have their own employees, separate from AT&T (formerly SBC) corporate. Talking about AT&T doing this or that will not be consistent from one location or line of business to another in many cases.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

ncted said:


> Sure. Nothing I said contradicts that. What I was saying is AT&T is not *run* as one big company. There are numerous smaller companies (all still pretty big individually), which don't always walk in lockstep, don't have the same policies and procedures, and have their own employees, separate from AT&T (formerly SBC) corporate. Talking about AT&T doing this or that will not be consistent from one location or line of business to another in many cases.


But it is. One CEO. He has total say over all other subsidiaries. Does each make their own policies? Sure as with all companies. But they can not go against the CEO's vision and policies.

http://www.att.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=7824


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Is there any DSL technology that actually uses the full bandwith of the copper including the audible frequencies? Like the old ISDN lines did, where it used telephone cable but you couldn't use the same line for both voice and data at the same time? Seems like these days they could just use the full line for data and use VOIP for voice instead of only using the higher inaudible frequencies for data and wasting the rest on POTS


UVerse VDSL uses the copper pair from the node and can get up to 24mps, while still allowing voice on the same pair, even though UVerse voice is VoIP.

Remember that voice can digitized at 8Kps.

The huge advantage of fiber besides the digital speed is single fibers replacing hundreds of pairs of copper.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

MikeAndrews said:


> UVerse VDSL uses the copper pair from the node and can get up to 24mps, while still allowing voice on the same pair, even though UVerse voice is VoIP.
> 
> Remember that voice can digitized at 8Kps.
> 
> The huge advantage of fiber besides the digital speed is single fibers replacing hundreds of pairs of copper.


I thought VDSL still used the inaudible frequencies and could still allow an old analog phone to exist on the same line?

FYI: Here they offer 45Mbps internet. And I've read that in some places they offer 75Mbps still using VDSL.

I've been doing some reading and it looks like G.fast technology uses the whole frequency range of the line. Although it's unclear if any US based telcos plan to deploy it or if they're going to skip it in favor of FTTH.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I thought VDSL still used the inaudible frequencies and could still allow an old analog phone to exist on the same line?
> 
> FYI: Here they offer 45Mbps internet. And I've read that in some places they offer 75Mbps still using VDSL.


Right. That's what I meant.

Dunno about G.Fast.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

zalusky said:


> Which is interesting since they installed fiber in our city last year. Does that mean the fiber is for Internet only or is it called something else.


I'm in Cupertino too. Comcast was out here last week working on the Telephone poles and the guy told me they were installing Fiber. Any idea when it will be available to order?


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## Johnwashere (Sep 17, 2005)

Glad to hear this! I moved to an apartment complex in August that only allows ATT Uverse. They sometimes would allow sattelite but they make it very hard. I have had many issues with my AT&T uverse TV and internet service. I cant wait to get back to cable with my Tivo when I move out. I cant believe how much I miss my tivo after using the crappy AT&T box (and I even have their newer box with tons of storage).


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

bareyb said:


> I'm in Cupertino too. Comcast was out here last week working on the Telephone poles and the guy told me they were installing Fiber. Any idea when it will be available to order?


I have been wondering about that as well. I have seen them all over the place.
I expect some time this year. The big question is what their pricing will be. I have blast now and get about 125 or so.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

bareyb said:


> I'm in Cupertino too. Comcast was out here last week working on the Telephone poles and the guy told me they were installing Fiber. Any idea when it will be available to order?


It could be for a business MetroE connection, the new 2gbps "home" MetroE service, or a node split. They've been quietly pushing fiber out into the field incrementally since the late '90s. Where you started with significant chunks of towns running on a node, now you've got nodes often less than a mile from the end users, significantly less in urban areas with a high subscriber density. Comcast often has fiber closer than AT&T, it's just that no one really cares, because it's the same service whether you'd got a couple miles of coax or 50' between you and the node. Comcast wants to eventually get to an N+0 architecture, where there are no amps and the nodes are very close to the end users, which would bring more bandwidth than today's FTTH systems on an all-IP cable system, and could compete directly against the next generation of fiber optics that offer 10 gig speeds.


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

joewom said:


> But it is. One CEO. He has total say over all other subsidiaries. Does each make their own policies? Sure as with all companies. But they can not go against the CEO's vision and policies.
> 
> http://www.att.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=7824


I think we are splitting hairs here. Suffice it to say that, IMHO, AT&T is pretty decentralized and inconsistent from product to product and region to region for a company which is projecting a single brand nation-wide. Perhaps it is more obvious to me as a business customer than it is from a consumer perspective. Perhaps it is all part of Randall's plan, but it certainly seems like the right hand often doesn't know what the left hand is doing.


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## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

ncted said:


> I think we are splitting hairs here. Suffice it to say that, IMHO, AT&T is pretty decentralized and inconsistent from product to product and region to region for a company which is projecting a single brand nation-wide. Perhaps it is more obvious to me as a business customer than it is from a consumer perspective. Perhaps it is all part of Randall's plan, but it certainly seems like the right hand often doesn't know what the left hand is doing.


True, but trust me that is with and business this size. Walmart as centralized as they are, doesn't flow as well as one would think. Sears is a prime example of one company but yet operates completely decentralized. But that is the CEO's vision with Sears. Of course it is not working out and that is what you get when a non retail person takes over a retail business. Fed Ex has one CEO yet a person that operates each of the four separate businesses. Verizon is just like ATT. Many differences by region. However I think in the telecommunication area its more on outdated regulations, then it is on how the want to run it. Yet that could be the CEO's direction which is each region is different based on the product. Only the executives in AT&T and the big share holders know for sure.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> 21M subs for DTV vs how few Million UVerse had, I am sure DTV had better rates.
> 
> However I would think that AT&T could have absorbed those rates without shutting down Uverse.
> 
> ...


AT&T had around 6 million subscribers before they bought DirecTv. Which would have put them at number three for cable TV providers. With only Comcast and Time Warner cable being larger.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

AT&T evolution from 1984 to today as a flow chart:

http://www.historicalstockinfo.com/chart.html


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