AT&T/Direct TV to discontinue satellite use

I just don't see this happening unless - Directiv is COSTING money to stay in business? If there is profit, it will remain, no doubt at all. Satellite TV going away? No Way. Drive around the countryside away from urban areas and start counting dishes.

pira114 wrote:
Wireless is getting better and better. Where I live, ATT is literally the only cell service. When I first moved here years ago, cell service sucked. Half a mile out of town and no service. Mostly due to terrain. In the mountains.

Now, cell service is great and works pretty far up the mountain. I can even get a small signal on one lake I frequent. Which used to be miles outside coverage.

Comcast came out and upgraded my router for Internet. It's really fast and now, I can connect to wifi and get almost a block away before it'll stop streaming video. Not that I need that, but we tested it just for fun.

Point is, in a town where 5 years ago it was really hard to get any service (satellite is still iffy due to so many trees), now the service is great. And it keeps getting better.

Personally, I could live just fine without it all. Of course. We all could. But it sure is nice sometimes. I bet 20 years from now we won't recognize the way we communicate. It'll either be so high tech we can't imagine it now, or back to smoke signals because we went too far. Haha

Are you saying the sky *isn't* falling??

Ahhh shucks - it's NOT a meteor or UFO - just space junk burning up on re-entry.

Makes good fodder for lots of cannons, though...:W

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Wireless is getting better and better. Where I live, ATT is literally the only cell service. When I first moved here years ago, cell service sucked. Half a mile out of town and no service. Mostly due to terrain. In the mountains.

Now, cell service is great and works pretty far up the mountain. I can even get a small signal on one lake I frequent. Which used to be miles outside coverage.

Comcast came out and upgraded my router for Internet. It's really fast and now, I can connect to wifi and get almost a block away before it'll stop streaming video. Not that I need that, but we tested it just for fun.

Point is, in a town where 5 years ago it was really hard to get any service (satellite is still iffy due to so many trees), now the service is great. And it keeps getting better.

Personally, I could live just fine without it all. Of course. We all could. But it sure is nice sometimes. I bet 20 years from now we won't recognize the way we communicate. It'll either be so high tech we can't imagine it now, or back to smoke signals because we went too far. Haha

Leaps in technology. I kept having issues with my DSL. My internet was very "iffy". They finally found that there were ants in a cable connection. Every time I would call I would get a sales pitch. It would take about five days to get a repairman out, but if I upgraded to U verse, they could have someone out the next day. I finally agreed to the "upgrade". I understood that the new technology was fiber optic. When they installed the new equipment, they hooked it to the old wire that has been there for over 30 years. My internet is still slow and my ATT cell service, although better in coverage than it was several years ago, still has dead spots, particularly in areas we like to camp.

The migration to streaming Media of all types is inevitable, especially with the advent of 5g cellular service. Cable companies will save billions in infrastructure costs by eliminating the need to hard wire every home.

I'm guessing the transition will result in data plans with no limits or extremely large caps, once 5g is widely deployed and available. As with anything else, however, I would also expect the cost to be the same, or slightly higher than current cable plans, for the consumer. We never seem to realize significant savings from these leaps in technology! :-(

The article did not say they were stopping satellite service, just that the streaming platform will become their primary platform. Check the article (Bloomberg) this one came from, no where does it say satellite was being discontinued.

I can see ATT/DirecTV shed its satellite hardware in urban areas with access to high speed internet, however, there will always be a need for satellite TV in vast areas of the country without high speed internet. The company will probably mine customers with high speed internet connections and then sell the satellite business with fewer customers to another company.

Dutch_12078 wrote:
I wonder if the announcement will provide some impetus for Dish to enhance its satellite programming to attract the many DTV subscribers that will be disenfranchised due to a lack of adequate high speed Internet. The little community near our former mountain top home in upstate NY was one such place when we lived there at least. No cell service, no cable service, no DSL service, just slow dial-up or limited satellite Internet. That may have changed since we left, although the coverage maps all still show no cell service there.

Ya, I would be screwed. From what you are telling me in a few years I will have no TV service.

Just like the bad old days. Oh well, what goes around, comes around. I am old now and don't watch TV much anymore anyway. I feel sorry for the younger generation though.

Now, I do get cell phone service but, not fast enough to stream much. And, there are places where there is no service at all. Like,,, some of the local parks. lol

How much more is this going to cost anyway??? Sounds like just a way to charge us more money for the same product.

I wonder if the announcement will provide some impetus for Dish to enhance its satellite programming to attract the many DTV subscribers that will be disenfranchised due to a lack of adequate high speed Internet. The little community near our former mountain top home in upstate NY was one such place when we lived there at least. No cell service, no cable service, no DSL service, just slow dial-up or limited satellite Internet. That may have changed since we left, although the coverage maps all still show no cell service there.

I can tell you that if you walk into the corporate office of ATT in Atlanta they have presentations running to the public about their plans to have 5G up and running by 2020. 5G to them means 1GB speeds. They think this is necessary not only for DirecTv but also driverless cars and other IoT (Internet of Things) devices.