Thread: AT&T Re-adds Slingbox Ban on 3G Network

Originally Posted by JAG72

It doesn't sound like Verizon and Sprint work any better in his case. It sounds like it has more to do with location than AT&T in general.

If they had one more tower towards his house they would work great. Go about 2 miles down the road and a Verizon or Sprint card works fine. So they do work better in this area than AT&T's oversold network but just not at his house. I could setup a yagi with an amp but that's just too much to deal with.

Originally Posted by mperdue

Yeah, but if you look at it that way you can't bitch about AT&T which seems to be what this thread is about.

The motto around here is "More bars in more places that you still can't use."

I just heard Clark Howard in conversation with Mark Segal who is some big shot with the at&T wireless company explain why they don't want you to watch sling box on their 3G network. He claimed that their network is just not capable of handling the speeds required by sling box and if people began to use this service it would bring their network down at this time. He did correct the rumor that AT&T was restricting iphone users from watching video on YouTube and said that they will not restrict anyone from watching YouTube or any other video, just not sling box. Clark Howard suggested that Dish Network will be really mad at AT&T because they own Sling Media and his comment was that their problem, but AT&T forbids any sling box usage on their network.
Segal also said that they will strictly enforce the 5Gb limit and he believes that normal people using their network will never come close to the 5Gb limit as long as they stick to normal web site surfing and e-mail usage. Also, if you use AT&T's video programming it will not count toward 5 Gb limit. This is a subscription PPV like service.

One thing was certain and that was, AT&T bully was not going to be intimidated by Clark Howard and the target was clearly directed at hurting Sling users.

The big question is-- IS AT&T network really that fragile that it won't handle 100kbps a sec ( what is typical for good cell phone video on sling media) sling video? MY guess is YES, it is. In Las Vegas at CES, while I had no problem surfing the net and slinging to my Verizon PDA at the convention center, other iphone users were down for the count.

Well its their network. They dont want a few sling users hogging it up for everyone else.

I must comment that in a semi-remote area where I camp, they've made some improvements. This year, I can use my USB dongle on my laptop with AT&T 3G and get speeds close to DSL. A few months ago, it wasn't much faster than Edge. That was when I gave up any idea of using it to sling HDTV from home to RV. And now it seems that Archos will never get their new HD devices to play nice with Dish ViP series HD DVRs. So that option's out, too. I can use Blu-ray - but only if I want to put up with rather poor AQ.

Same for iPhone use- pages are snappier.

So things are improving. Perhaps they are waiting to spend their bucks on 4G, when IT comes out.

See this
link

for related info. Heavy 3G use affects all the carriers.

Originally Posted by navychop

See this
link

for related info. Heavy 3G use affects all the carriers.

The world is on the 4g network 3g is the past.

Sprint is ahead of everyone else in that they have the 4g network. The new IPHONE PRO will have 4g since apple wants to sell more IPHONE to the rest of the world.

Next year expect to see the IPHONE on other carriers who will begin to offer 4G.

Originally Posted by The Insider

Well its their network. They dont want a few sling users hogging it up for everyone else.

No I pay for INTERNET access and I am allowed up to 5GB data transfer every month. If I want to use it to watch my Slingbox via the internet on my iphone I should be allowed to as long as I don't go over my 5GB is data allowed per month.

They are selling me internet access, let me use the internet as I please.

Originally Posted by Scott Greczkowski

No I pay for INTERNET access and I am allowed up to 5GB data transfer every month. If I want to use it to watch my Slingbox via the internet on my iphone I should be allowed to as long as I don't go over my 5GB is data allowed per month.

They are selling me internet access, let me use the internet as I please.

Scott, Where have you seen that the iPhone is limited to only 5GB per month? I know that the other data plans are limited but I have not seen anything about the iPhones having the same limits.

It says it on my contract.