DirecTV parent AT&T to phase out satellites

[nobodyspecial]

Report: DirecTV parent AT&T to phase out satellites in 3 to 5 years



American City Business Journals•September 27, 2016



AT&T Inc. – which is expected to premier its streaming service DirecTV Now later this year – reportedly will work to make streaming its primary TV platform by 2020. AT&T last year acquired satellite-TV service DirecTV, which has a large Colorado footprint. Under the timeline, as reported by Bloomberg, DirecTV set-top boxes and satellite dishes could be obsolete in three to five years. Bloomberg cites people familiar with the plans. Dallas-based AT&T (NYSE: T) has claimed no allegiance to satellite TV technology from day one of its $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV, but it hasn’t publicly provided any definitive answers or a timeline on a migration of its 25 million video subscribers

[The Noof]

I wonder about the wisdom of a move like that,if it's true.How many people in rural areas with sub-par internet will be excluded if they make the jump to iptv?

[wattso99]

I'm on AT&T..I tried a mag 250 and it wouldn't work on it. The same unit would work on my lady friends IP.

[Dells]

You would have to wonder if anyone at AT&T has a brain. Satellite started as a way to get TV to rural areas. Most Rural areas still don't have decent, if any, internet services. They can get satellite internet, but it's not enough to stream TV with even if you purchase enough bandwidth. Can you imagine all the rural sat users with that NFL Sunday ticket and their locals not getting them? Millions of people would be affected is my guess, but I'm sure they won't care as they sell the service into the cities cable and internet system. I just see this as the few being outnumbered by a corporations profit. Can you imagine how much they would make with a streaming NFL Sunday ticket pack?

[Gates07]

satellite tv was first invented by i think REA by the govt to provide farmers tv, they may have only had radio in some areas, then got sold off by some greedy govt official, and if you have telephone you have internet, this is not back in the 50's with party lines any more, it may not be fast or do what cable is doing and cable speeds vary far below what is advertised and billed for, i see a lot of sat dishes, so again what you see is management is getting greedy, they no longer want to service what they were originally intended to do, and this may be the time when they have to spend millions on a new sat, the present one may not be able to process what they want to send out so change directions and say too bad se ya,

[outtyrox]

I don't think that's true. I just got U-Verse and the tech said they're pushing Directv to take the load off their network.

[Dells]

Directv is not a load on anyone's network. First off their a satellite company, second they have their own system. That makes no sense.

[zayden]

It makes perfect sense, read it again.

[jvvh5897]

You know tech has come a long way from when satellite TV was developed. You have other options and even if you can't do one of the already setup ones, you can come up with a solution yourselves.
For instance, have a bank of recording ATSC convert boxes and maybe a couple of streaming boxes set up to record in a nearby town and go in and pick up a day or two of recordings then distribute them around your rural area--only a little cost to set up. Odds are that this is so close to the TV recording service that was deemed illegal that you could get caught, but...
Or, upconvert the VHF lo and high band to around the UHF band and then convert the TV spectrum to something around 12 GHz (might want to talk to FCC and your local political leaders to get them to make it legal) and amp it up to 50 mW or so to a small dish (that we all know and love) to beam it to your area--you can put a dish at the rural end 30 miles away, or use a set of relay points to get out 90 miles or so. Might have to invest a little and do a little creative hacking of hardware out there, but it is doable for very little money. You might have to pay the broadcasters a few thousand dollars a year and pay the relay point owners a little a year too, but all in all less that the group would pay for satellite TV for a year.
In the old days you could setup translators for rural area to fill in service area but it would cost a lot for a transmitter and you had to get licenses and buy or rent location for site. With today's tech you could do it on the cheap.

[jets]

I don't think the FCC will let them pull the plug on Sat, they have to server there rural sub.

How do you just pull out of a bossiness that has subscribers and force them to something else or cut them off totally?

[Mr Hanky]

I don't think the FCC will let them pull the plug on Sat, they have to server there rural sub.

How do you just pull out of a bossiness that has subscribers and force them to something else or cut them off totally? Easy ...lose money!

[jvvh5897]

The FCC does not care about whether or not rural areas are served by satellite--whether or not ANYONE gets or does not get radio or TV is not their mandate. The FTC might care that it leaves DN with a monopoly but with the power of ATT I'm betting that they look the other way (really not a big population in rural area, so no pay off for them).

[Terryl]

I could see a BIG class action denial of service law suite in the future.

[skideric]

Yup!
Will be a long time before they do away with Sat TV! Courts would sloooow it down...

[jvvh5897]

They are going to get rid of the SD only satellites in a year or two. At least that is what they say over at dbstalk.

[xray]

if they want to go streaming then go streaming, why phase out a product until it phases itself out.

[c8rbk1ng]

What makes everyone here think they're going to use the internet and IPTV? All the statement says is that they're going to phase out satellites. Golly gee, call me old fashioned, but there was a time we had TV BEFORE sats., IKS and Internet streaming, and there are a lot of ways today that they can deliver their product...maybe ways we don't even know about yet :noidea:

[skatz420]

Ma Bell has LTE coverage to a lot of people. So if they get enough density they could easily stream to people's homes in many areas. So when it comes time to launch new birds, they may opt not to because they already have enough network. Not to mention their copper/fiber network.

[nob0dy]

I have Direct , they haven't said a word to me .......

[dishuser]

Ma Bell has LTE coverage to a lot of people. So if they get enough density they could easily stream to people's homes in many areas. So when it comes time to launch new birds, they may opt not to because they already have enough network. Not to mention their copper/fiber network.
for last couple of years in bigger cities you get fibe...unless you already have a dish set up
try that on louth street where you don't have sewer/water...lol
the dish ain't going away for years unless they make those using fibe pay more to cover lost revenue
and then maybe people will remember how I have watched tv most of my life...ANTENNA...FREE!!!!