AT&T to drop Dish contract

While U-Verse is growing, it's availability is not widespread enough to do this, and may never be considering the many rural areas AT&T covers.


AT&T will still be selling satellite service when this si over. the question is which one. Until the recent rumors everyone was sure it was DSIH now it could be either one.
 
I don't think U-Verse is going to be much competition. It can only do what- one or two HD channels at a time? I could easily be recording 1 or 2 HD programs and watching another 1 or 2 HD programs at the same time. With Dish. Fios and it's fiber to the home is the way to go, not fiber to the neighborhood and copper pairs to the home.
 
I don't think U-Verse is going to be much competition.

Eventually it might be but looking at how slowly it's rolling out AT&T will need to have a DBS partner to be able to provide a TV bundling partner. Even then I really doubt that AT&T's going to go to the expense of providing UVerse to the more sparsely populated areas in their service territory. Just look how they handled their project LightSpeed which was to provide DSL service to all their customers too far from the CO's, some folks are still waiting.
 
If Direct TV wins this battle what will Dish do?? sell to Direct TV or partner up with mr Murdoch--Let him own the thing---

Mr Murdoch owning Dish is not that far fetched he at on time was a major investor in Dish and did try to get majorty control.
If that happens I'll drop Dish like a hot potato -contract or not!:eek:
 
from what i understand, uverse can only support one hd tv at a time showing an hd channel. how can that compete with services that allow mutliple hd tv's in the same household to watch hd feeds.
 
from what i understand, uverse can only support one hd tv at a time showing an hd channel. how can that compete with services that allow mutliple hd tv's in the same household to watch hd feeds.

Actually I think it is up to two now in most markets. Not that it is much more competitive... but it's a start.
 
For all the gleeful Dish bashers, you better read the whole article for the details before you perform your celebration ceremony. The existing contract expires in December and at&t is contractually obligated to send a six month notice. This notice is part of the negotiation dance. This doesn't mean at&t will drop Dish and it doesn't mean it will keep them either. It means they will negotiate. at&t needs a satellite provider to fill in the gaps of their own video platform, u-verse. They will be looking for the best deal, period. And they may still decide to buy Dish outright. After all Dish would be somewhat of a bargain these days wouldn't it.

So sit back and watch the show people. It just started.
 
Actually I think it is up to two now in most markets. Not that it is much more competitive... but it's a start.

I believe the plans are now to go to 4.

And they have the whole-home DVR coming (meaning if you only get 1 DVR, whatever you record on it can be watched on any TV in the house hooked to a Uverse receiver).
 
4 might be enough. I'd consider that a minimum. But I know I've read somewhere that by the time they hit 3, they'd have to start cutting PQ. Something about inherent limitations of the copper system or some such.

But if they do 4, it'll probably be "good enough" for most people. Not for me. I'm glad I'm in Fios territory.

I've heard about whole house DVRs too many times to believe it. If VOOM really had one almost ready for market, I'd think somebody would have picked it up. It would be a great selling point.
 
I believe with pair bonding, new technolgy and eventual FTTP will results in at least 4 hd streams with no PQ issues. IMO If they catch up,before more people are educated in HD it is not a critical issue, important yes(critical to me,though). I think Price will be they driving force in the beginning. Many people still do not have an idea what HD is versus digital, much less how many streams their carrier can do. As The TW ad says "they wouldn't know HD if it sat on thier lap and called them mama."
 
AT&T has informed satellite TV provider DISH Network that it will end the companies' bundling partnership at the end of this year, opening the way for a new companywide satellite deal with DISH or DirecTV starting in 2009.

In the first quarter, AT&T announced it would exclusively resell DISH satellite TV services through the end of 2008, including in the nine states served by BellSouth, which AT&T acquired last year and which had a deal with DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite provider.

DirecTV already has exclusive bundling deals with Verizon and Qwest.

DirecTV has about 16 million households, and DISH has nearly 14 million.

DISH disclosed in a regulatory filing Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it received a notice of termination from AT&T on June 30 that ends the deal that began in 2003.

DISH referred queries to AT&T, where spokeswoman Jenny Parker told Multichannel.com, "We continue to discuss options with DISH," adding that "we don't comment on specifics about our business-to-business relationships, but we are evaluating our options."

DirecTV spokeswoman Jade Ekstedt wrote in an e-mail that "this news is between DISH and AT&T, but as we have said in the past, we are still negotiating with AT&T," Multichannel.com reported.

AT&T offers bundles that include satellite TV with its phone and Internet service, although it has begun offering its own U-verse TV service in some areas, including portions of the Milwaukee, Racine, Green Bay and Fox Valley areas in Wisconsin. It has not said when it will launch U-verse in the Madison area but is expected to be within the next several months.

Analysts have said bundling with a satellite provider is important for AT&T until it can roll U-verse out in all of its markets.

Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Craig Moffett, in a June 17 note to investors, said that AT&T exercising its rights could be "the final nail in the coffin of merger speculation" regarding AT&T and DISH, Multichannel.com reported.
 
I believe the Fios version of FTTP can carry more than 4 HD streams today. Anybody know how many?
 
I believe the Fios version of FTTP can carry more than 4 HD streams today. Anybody know how many?

Verizon's FIOS system is basically just a cable type system that uses fiber to the home, it sends all channels to the home and the STB picks which one to view. So there is no limit to the number of HD streams you can view in your home.

UVerse is IPTV based and because of the limited bandwidth going into the home only the actual channel(s) being viewed/recorded are sent to the home. On the single copper access to the home it has been 4SD and 1HD stream, but it looks like you can ask for a 2SD and 2HD profile. Once they start to roll out VDSL pair bonding they will be able to increase those limits.
 
Just as coax has signal limits, so does fiber. Verizon may or may not use the fiber to it's max capabilities, just as many cablecos do not fully utilize the bandwidth available via coax.

But there was published, and I can't find it now, a breakdown of how much of the fiber capacity was used by/available to voice comms. And how much for internet. And how much for video. And how much kept in reserve. I believe there was a slice for control and management signals as well. Yes, currently all channels all the time. But there is a distinct maximum number to the HD channels that can be carried, at a given bandwidth per channel. Maybe its 150. Maybe its more. But I'd love to come across that information again.

One day, if need be, Verizon could do some IPTV tricks over the fiber, just as some cablecos do over coax. It is hard to imagine that ever being needed. But maybe 3D will come, and such will make sense. And companies depending upon twisted pairs to the home will regret their earlier decisions.
 
So far all I regret about setting up U-Verse is being bound to Dish Network's silly contracts.

What's with these anyway. I wonder if Dish feels like this somehow makes customers happy having to sign up for an 18 month deal just to get their programming?
It's a beat down is all it is.

AT&T charges me no such penalty for canceling their service, I keep hearing rumors that I can get out of a Dish contract since AT&T are partners but, the folks at Dish Network don't know anything about this. If they do they keep a tight lip when I call them to ask about it.

I didn't sign up for U-verse because I was mad at Dish Network, they were moving my DSL to U-Verse no matter what I did but, they offered a free set up and month trial of U-Verse. I realized after the month that it really is nice to actually be able to watch something without fear of the wind blowing the signal out. so we kept it.
What good is being able to record 4 HD channels if half the time all I end up watching is an 'Acquiring Satellite' signal screen?

The AT&T DVR is better than Dish's but it's still no Tivo. It's great to be able to schedule recordings while away from home on the internet, plus the unit is about half the physical size of the 622.

It sounds like some folks aren't completely straight on their facts about U-Verse and their posts seem to shed a little negative slant on it. I guess if AT&T was such a bad idea then it makes me wonder why 5 other homes on my street alone have recently ditched their dish?
 
If you lose signal from the wind, your dish was not set up right.

Let me know how UVerse works for you, when you're recording 2 HD programs while watching a third, like I often do.
 
If you lose signal from the wind, your dish was not set up right.

Let me know how UVerse works for you, when you're recording 2 HD programs while watching a third, like I often do.


Wow how much TV does one need to watch! I agree 2 HD streams and 2 SD streams per house is low. But I think the features keep it ahead in the race over dish. The whole house DVR, Bundled VOIP, 10Mbps DSL, and seemless interaction between all of the services. Being able to pause a show on the big screen and walk up to the bedroom and resume is a huge plus for me and im sure many....
 
Verizon's FIOS system is basically just a cable type system that uses fiber to the home, it sends all channels to the home and the STB picks which one to view. So there is no limit to the number of HD streams you can view in your home.

UVerse is IPTV based and because of the limited bandwidth going into the home only the actual channel(s) being viewed/recorded are sent to the home. On the single copper access to the home it has been 4SD and 1HD stream, but it looks like you can ask for a 2SD and 2HD profile. Once they start to roll out VDSL pair bonding they will be able to increase those limits.


I know I read somewhere that Verizon FTTP is going IPTV in 2009. I think they acutally ran out of bandwidth since all channels were broadcast plus the high speed DSL. I don't think the fiber is maxed since fiber can currently carry over 1TB of data I think the equipment is maxed. However moving to IPTV over fiber would allow for high bitrate HD up around 10Mbps or higher per stream against AT&Ts max of 6.5Mbps..

I think the copper service "FTTN" runs at 30Mbps total with 2 X 6.5Mbps HD streams 2 X 1.5Mbps SD feeds, 10Mbps DSL, leaving only 4Mbps for VOIP and if your like me and have 2 lines I think I will be pushing the limits. I think using "Pair bonding" they can get 45 or 50 Mbps per house using 2 copper drops but I don't know anyone that is using that yet.
 
Its not that I think this is necessarily bad news, its just that Dish is like the US govt right now on the international scene. They cant do anything right or get any good press. Meanwhile D* is sitting VERY pretty. Spin it how you want, but Dish really needs some positive moves and fast. I think a big step forward(once the new sats up) would be to add a few more national HD's and announce they were passing thru native resolution and going after FIOS. Anything less will just keep them as D*'s ***ch for a long time.

You make it sound as if the bad press is groundless. Bad moves are producing bad results and people are noticing and so the bad press. That's the simple truth. It's frustrating watching a company that had so many good things going completely blow it. Banks/investors and stockholders will soon follow with concerns, downgrades and devaluation. If Charlie and E don't soon mend their ways the marketplace will soon make them another footnote.
 
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