AT&T drops DirecTV and U-verse prices, looks to slow declines

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Yeah, I was gonna go Dish but comparing the price over two years vs Directv would come out to be the same if not barely any different if I were to sign up for Directv under a family member as a new customer. Only other option for me was going full cord cutting mode since charter is absolute crap when it comes to Dvrs and buying Tivo imo was too much of an investment.

For now I am on DTV Now, sucks no cloud dvr yet and no locals but I don’t expect too much for paying $35 a month with free HBO. Cord cutting now is at 12 million people and I expect it to become bigger next year, they are putting a hurt on tradional providers that it made att introduce DTV NOW and Charter offering streaming service at $20 bucks a month.
I don't think streaming is hurting D* as much as some think .... ATT added the D* Now to have another revenue and to be on board with what others are doing.
Sat is not going away, theres plenty of areas that don't have internet available to them.
 
I don't think streaming is hurting D* as much as some think .... ATT added the D* Now to have another revenue and to be on board with what others are doing.
Sat is not going away, theres plenty of areas that don't have internet available to them.

Right, Sat is gonna be around for a while, it will hurt cable companies more since they are bleeding. Charter introduced their streaming service, which is not bad, no sports pack and the price its pretty good. 70% of the channels I watch, just DirecTV Now offers the better value for the money for me now.
 
Sat is not going away, theres plenty of areas that don't have internet available to them.

The tradeoff is that if you don't want to live in a bustling metropolis, having to deal with high taxes, pollution, noise and insane house pricing, satellite is really the only option available. Granted, over the past few years, we've seen an increase in high-speed wireless providers, but you'll never see cable/fiber in rural areas because of population density vs. initial setup cost. Until wireless gets to the point where the signal is 99% reliable even during inclement weather, with fast-enough speeds and unlimited bandwidth, there's no suitable replacement for satellite. There'll always be a market for it. However, hopefully the prices will continue to drop across the board and we never run into a monopoly situation, because that wouldn't help matters either.
 
Did they change their mind and they decided they are keeping UVerseTV?
It just hasn't happened yet.

Personally, I don't think it's going away so much as just not expandin it, they no longer sell Uverse TV Unless you ask for it from what I've heard.
 
It just hasn't happened yet.

Personally, I don't think it's going away so much as just not expandin it, they no longer sell Uverse TV Unless you ask for it from what I've heard.
I guess they aren't going to merge the channel lineups anymore? I wonder what happens when TBS, TNT, USA channel contracts expire on UVerseTV would they renew them for UVerseTV?
 
I guess they aren't going to merge the channel lineups anymore? I wonder what happens when TBS, TNT, USA channel contracts expire on UVerseTV would they renew them for UVerseTV?
My guess is it gets merged with the D* contract and then when U Verse and D* contracts expire at the same time.
 
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My guess is it gets merged with the D* contract and then when U Verse and D* contracts expire at the same time.
I guess UVerseTV's METV and Heroes and Icons won't get merged with DTV since those are sub-channels? Or could DTV just add those two only since those are the only two sub-channels UVerseTV has?
 
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If they came out with an offer or a separate company offering a deal where the programming was cheaper just like back in the c band days but make the customer pay for their own equipment and installation then they could drop the price a bit on the programming lowering their overhead. The cell companies give a discount on the bill to make up for the extra charge for the cell phone on your bill instead of just giving you the phone. They could also try offering a deal to those that stay the longer you stay the more you get preventing people from wanting to switch. For example, year one gets one free month, year two gets two free months, etc.
 
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If they came out with an offer or a separate company offering a deal where the programming was cheaper just like back in the c band days but make the customer pay for their own equipment and installation then they could drop the price a bit on the programming lowering their overhead. The cell companies give a discount on the bill to make up for the extra charge for the cell phone on your bill instead of just giving you the phone. They could also try offering a deal to those that stay the longer you stay the more you get preventing people from wanting to switch. For example, year one gets one free month, year two gets two free months, etc.
Make those 13 year customers really happy.
 
So I've had D* for 22 years. Will I get a discount? My bill just went up another $5 to $101.37 for Total Choice (no locals). Started out as $31.79 and as recently as 5 years ago (2014) was $74.02. So it took over 17 years to go up $42 and then 5 years to go up $27. I now get fewer channels than when I started and have never added packages or extras. As soon as ESPN goes mobile I will seriously consider dropping D* since it is really the only D* channels I watch with any consistency. I do live in a rural area where there are no options (no cable, no fios, nothing but satellite and free to air). They really should do something for their existing customers.
 
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They really should do something for their existing customers.

So have you asked them to do anything? If you look around here, many people have do just that & gotten some better results...but pretty much any cable/sat co. is NOT going to reach out to you. Sorry, just the reality...
 
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So have you asked them to do anything? If you look around here, many people have do just that & gotten some better results...but pretty much any cable/sat co. is NOT going to reach out to you. Sorry, just the reality...
I was about to post the same thing .... gotta call in and see what they will do for you, they have too many subs to be calling them making offers.
 
So I've had D* for 22 years. Will I get a discount? My bill just went up another $5 to $101.37 for Total Choice (no locals). Started out as $31.79 and as recently as 5 years ago (2014) was $74.02. So it took over 17 years to go up $42 and then 5 years to go up $27. I now get fewer channels than when I started and have never added packages or extras. As soon as ESPN goes mobile I will seriously consider dropping D* since it is really the only D* channels I watch with any consistency. I do live in a rural area where there are no options (no cable, no fios, nothing but satellite and free to air). They really should do something for their existing customers.

So you're on the old grandfathered Total Choice package from the late 90s? Is that $101 price figure including hardware or just programming? According to DirecTVs website, their current base package is Select and retail rate is $78, their second lowest package is Entertainment and it's $90. Depending on what kind of hardware you have, you may be looking at a savings by moving out of the old Total Choice package and into something current.
 
was looking at dropping and just getting Charter but after all the misc fees I am back to close to the $90 price with D*.
I may now just get the cheapest Charter package and use my FireTV and watch TV via the Apps of the specific networks. Most do live and have their programming on Demand. I don't have 4K yet so I am not missing anything there. DVR means nothing since everything is on Demand, yeah I have commercials but there are less than broadcast.
If I didn't have to pay for their crappy hardware I might use it, but it's really not worth it.
 
was looking at dropping and just getting Charter but after all the misc fees I am back to close to the $90 price with D*.
I may now just get the cheapest Charter package and use my FireTV and watch TV via the Apps of the specific networks. Most do live and have their programming on Demand. I don't have 4K yet so I am not missing anything there. DVR means nothing since everything is on Demand, yeah I have commercials but there are less than broadcast.
If I didn't have to pay for their crappy hardware I might use it, but it's really not worth it.
Instead of ADDING a service, (looking for a cheaper Charter package), why not look for a Cheaper Directv package, this way you won't have to do away with what you already have in the home and start over with a new one ?
 
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was looking at dropping and just getting Charter but after all the misc fees I am back to close to the $90 price with D*.
I may now just get the cheapest Charter package and use my FireTV and watch TV via the Apps of the specific networks. Most do live and have their programming on Demand. I don't have 4K yet so I am not missing anything there. DVR means nothing since everything is on Demand, yeah I have commercials but there are less than broadcast.
If I didn't have to pay for their crappy hardware I might use it, but it's really not worth it.

What misc fees? The only extra fees I pay with Charter are the franchise fee and the broadcast TV fee, which is about the same amount as the RSN fee DirecTV charges in my area.
 
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