ATT doing away with satellite TV

[hpdrver]

Previously I posted that in five years most people will get television over the Internet. Today ATT announced that they intend to do away with Direct TV and satellite TV by 2020 And provide tv over the Internet. I wish I could predict stocks like that. Dish may be the only satellite provider in the near future. Which may explain why Dish is trying to get into the cellular market.

[magicbus]

So much for watching tv in the boonies... have to enjoy nature. 🙂

Dave

[GordonThree]

hpdrver wrote:
Not only will set top box manufacturers be impacted but Winegard and King Controls will feel the crunch when no one needs to buy satellite antennas. With advances in cell technology, everywhere you can get a cell signal, you will be able to watch tv.

They'll just have to apply their brand loyalty and engineering know-how to cellular and wifi antenna designs.

[GordonThree]

Well great. Next up, Verizon is buying Dish (rumored)... and I'm sure they'll follow AT&T's lead, shutting down the service.

They can sell their geosync bandwidth to more profitable endeavors... I read somewhere the geosync orbit for North America is pretty crowded, with few if any slots available, would be lucrative to free up that bandwidth.

Either that, or the satellites are expiring in a few years (thruster fuel, cumulative rad damage, etc) and rather than replace them, it's easier and cheaper to switch to "streaming" and just let those birds go dark.

I wonder how AT&T plans to deliver that bandwidth terrestrially, last time I had their DSL service at my house, they struggled to deliver 1mbit, which is not enough for HD.

[hpdrver]

Not only will set top box manufacturers be impacted but Winegard and King Controls will feel the crunch when no one needs to buy satellite antennas. With advances in cell technology, everywhere you can get a cell signal, you will be able to watch tv.

[Campfire_Time]

They aren't doing this for any benevolent reason like they are doing us favors, or because it's the wave of the future. They are doing it to look good in the face coming legislation that will do away with proprietary set top boxes. Cable companies make huge amounts of money on box rental fees. They aren't happy about the proposal, but AT&T is looking for a way to make us think they are the good guys and at the same time keep us from buying a 3rd party set top box.

https://consumerist.com/2016/09/27/advocates-lawmakers-even-best-buy-call-on-fcc-to-approve-cable-bo...

Personally aside from losing DVR ability, I really like streaming. Time Warner/Spectrum has an excellent TV app that we use on a couple of ROKUs in the house instead of having a box. Now if Netflix can get contracts to open 100% of their content to streaming, I probably wouldn't need cable at all.

EDIT: wowens79 beat me to it!

[wowens79]

I think most people will stream TV shortly, you will either buy a bundle of channels from Netflix, Hulu, Directtv etc, and stream them. The FCC is pushing that direction by wanting to do away with the cable/satelite boxes and streaming it to apps on smart TV's (http://fortune.com/2016/09/07/fcc-set-top-box-cable/)

You won't see directv go away because many people live in rural areas where speeds needed for streaming are not available.

[magicbus]

AT&T has set a timeline to phase out satellites and set-top boxes

[jcpainter]

hpdrver wrote:
The story is on Yahoo and cites Dallas business news.

Thanks, that was a most interesting read.

[hpdrver]

The story is on Yahoo and cites Dallas business journal. I wish I knew how to provide a link. Perhaps someone can do it for us.

[jcpainter]

Could you provide a link to that announcement?

Thank you