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AT&T To Offer TV Over Phone Lines
ppadala writes "AT&T is upgrading their phone lines to offer video programmes over phone line. The service, called U-verse TV will be available in parts of Southern California communities initially. Channel lineups will be similar to traditional cable and dish offerings. AT&T is insisting that, 'This offering is on par with those of its cable rivals. But AT&T claims that it offers customers more for their money, including fast channel changing, video-on-demand, three set-top boxes, a digital video recorder, a picture-in-picture feature that allows viewers to surf channels without switching channels and an interactive program guide.'"
Wow, video (on demand and more) via the phone lines. I actually had a "moment" of anticipation, thinking I could maybe finally dump the miserable (Comcast) quality and service of our cable company. Then, the quote: "'This offering is on par with those of its cable rivals. "...
Sigh.
Gee, that sounds like what Europe and Japan seem to offer people at a fraction of the cost, except crappier and more expensive. Way to go AT&T! I love when telecoms are looking out for the consumer's best interest.
/sarcasm off
ADSL modem + private network + set-top box.
Must have taken them months to independantly discover this combination.
How we know is more important than what we know.
At least not in Hong Kong, where the local phone company has been offering this service for years:
http://www.nowbroadbandtv.com/eng/
This definitely isn't the first ILEC to offer TV over IP: I know Telus up in Canada is offering it already.
Having used it quite a bit myself, it's very similar to digital cable (isn't that what it is?). There's also the added bonus of choosing very customizable channel packages and individual channels to subscribe to, which I think is a good change from the limited Tiers from cable companies.
How is TV an upgrade over anything?
American Icon, Survivor, etc!
How about phone sex with a phone ?
God, why would 3 set-top boxes be an improvement? By that reasoning it would be even better if each box had its own separate wall wart and remote control too - hmm, I guess they do...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Yes, no one cares about you trying to make money by directing traffic to your web site with lots of banner ads.
Please, move along everyone. Nothing to see here.
The ATT site is somewhat short on details, but it does mention that it delivers TV programming "using Internet Protocol via a broadband connection".
...
This raises some questions:
1) Is the bandwidth dedicated to television progamming separate from your other broadband use? Or does watching TV take up most of your bandwidth? Given that they offer a DVR, which means that TV programming will be continuously streamed to the device (think 1/2 hour buffers or whatever), I would expect the only reasonable way for this to work is for AT&T to dedicate bandwidth above and beyond your normal broadband connection to TV programming. But that's just a guess
2) Is the 4 "tuner" DVR capable of recording 4 programs at once *in real time* over a single "U-verse" connection? Or does each show stream in at 1/4 real time and you just have to wait 4x longer for all shows to complete?
3) Are they using multicast IP or peer-to-peer streaming? I would expect the latter since multicasting 190+ channels would seem infeasable.
4) Given that it's likely peer-to-peer, does AT&T really think they have the server capacity to support tens of thousands of customers all streaming different programming at different times?
5) Are there QOS guarantees in place that would prevent my TV programming from ever "hiccuping" due to traffic congestion?
It looks like a very interesting offering *if* the aspects of the service that AT&T "conveniently" left out in their documentation live up to the hype - i.e., if you really can record 4 channels (or even 2) at once in real time without disturbing your other broadband use.
So... question is, is this just some stopgap crapola that they can announce, but in reality will only be available to a few selected areas and that's it?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The phone company where I work is a small outfit that only has about 6-8k customers, but we've had this for the last few years, to answer a few questions that have come up, 1.The tv bandwidth is seperate from the internet. 2.It's done through peer to peer streaming, I can run 3 tvs simultaneously over one phone line, but that's it unless you have a second line. 3. The quality of service is amazing, it never hiccups and they're going to start offering HD signal soon.
fast channel changing - What's slow about pushing the button and the next channel is there? I can't even blink that fast.
video-on-demand - Cable's got it and charges out the ass. Unless it's free and actually has content (the free stuff on cable is crap), no thanks.
three set-top boxes - Right, cuz 1 just wasn't enough.
a digital video recorder - Is that ANOTHER box? Anyhow, cable without DVR isn't worth it.
a picture-in-picture feature that allows viewers to surf channels without switching channels - TV, cable, satellite have all have this for years,
an interactive program guide - Again, they've all had it for years.
If they aren't going to offer anything special, and they aren't going to have significantly lower prices, they can go ahead and call this a failure.
The only thing I see that's even halfway special is that the entire thing is going to be 'on-demand'. That's why the need to state fast channel switching, etc. They aren't going to play all channels all the time... They are only going to play the 2 channels (pic in pic) that you are currently watching, streamed from their CO. (Central Office, the local telephone switch in each city.) If they also made it so that the 'DVR' wasn't at my house, but was instead stored at the CO (it's not really a DVR, just a way to play back whenever I want) then I could see an advantage.
DVR Advantage: I missed Survivor this week because A) I forgot or B) The president had a fit and decided to tell the world, making every show in existance run later than normal. With CO-based DVR, I could just say 'I want to watch ep 785 of Survivor' and it plays it. No worries about storage space or recording mishaps. I'd even pay -extra- for this service. Take it a step further and let me watch Thursday's shows -any time- on Thursday, even before they 'air', and I'd be even happier.
But no, they'll totally miss the coolest aspects of this and instead try to merely match what everyone else already has.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
This sounds like vdsl (which allows about 80mb/sec bandwidth, with most of the bandwidth going to the video stream). My apartment building recently got vdsl, the advantages are that there is no need for every apartment wanting satellite TV to have to setup a satellite dish (it's not allowed here anyway). Also, we can get full speed dsl service without having to worry about line quality or being close to a Central Office. All the data is piped into the building through fiber optic cable, while using the existing cable infrastructure of the building to carry the signals to the individual apartment units.
I have a friend who has been contracted with AT&T for the last 6 months to check the lines going into large apartment complexes for this service. So my guess is it won't be long before it is offered nation-wide.
I care.
I enjoy a good troll. And I really don't think that he's trying to get money with those banner ads. If that were the case he would try to get modded UP instead of down. Some of those imPolls get up to 2000 votes sometimes, but they are never the Poll Troll ones.
His purpose is to troll, and to entertain.
... it's not a bad deal. For $74 a month, you can get cable, internet and phone. I pay 90 a month for a similar triple play deal from my cable provider right now... That said, I'm willing to bet that AT&T's internet offering is a lot slower than what I have right now. It's based on DSL technology, right?
This has been available in parts of Houston for about 4 months.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
http://www.uverseusers.com/
This has been out for like.. a year... I only know because I work there. Nice try though. BTW, some other features are Setup/Control Recordings via the web and your AT&T/Cingular phone, complete FTTN or FTTP (depending on where you are), 1st 2 months free with no contract.
The DVR is 1 of your STB's, eventually they're going to get a whole house DVR. You also get a 2wire RG, one of the best RG's in existance.
Our house signed up for U-Verse a few weeks ago. We've got about 350 channels. It's actually delivered by fiber to a node down the block, then a specialized DSL connection that's 6 Mb/s connection. The service is extremely location specific. Our next door neighbors can't get it, so we're right on the edge.
The TV is H.264 encoded and streamed over IP to the DVR box. You can record up to 4 standard definition channels, or a single HD channel, while watching another. The standard def television looks better than regular standard def. More like 480p. The 'Hi def' channels look similar to 720p but with noticeable compression, and the occasional dropped frame. If someone were really looking for full 1080i HD, highest possible quality, I'd have some reservations recommending it. But the SD looks good enough that we're pretty happy with it. A lot of what we watch is still only on the SD channels.
Since everything is streaming, it always buffers about 90 minutes worth of footage of whatever you're watching (a la tivo). It also has some neat features like being able to show thumbnail previews of channels while you're surfing around, along with a representation of how far into the show it is.
Overall, the DVR functions are quite primitive. Its can be difficult to make the recordings you want. There doesn't seem to be any way to make only recordings of new episodes of Stargate SG1 (This is slighly less of a problem since there's only like 4 episodes left in the series. This was the only show we record that had problems.
For TV + broadband for under $100, its well worth it for us.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
It's also being offered in some Texas communities, including Houston.
C'mon, baby, kiss The King.
Parts of San Antonio have had the service for over a year.
Check this site out to find out more about U-verse:
http://www.uverseusers.com/
Unfortunately, I am too far from any of the boxes to get the service yet.
3screens.net also has some comparisons between cable vs. U-verse.
Excuse me for asking a weird question, but how long does it take to change channels? Digital cable for me takes around 1.5 seconds - it's long enough to be noticeable and annoying.
How much is this going to cost? I hope it's not an arm, a leg and the first born of the next five generations that some cable companies charge.
Via Bellsouth. It's rumored to be rolled out to other major BS areas towards the end of the year.
http://www.bims.bellsouth.net/bei_atl/index.htm
What was your username again? -BOFH
3) Are they using multicast IP or peer-to-peer streaming? I would expect the latter since multicasting 190+ channels would seem infeasable.
This is a silly question. This will use multicast of course. And there is no real limit on the number of channels in total -- which has nothing to do with the bandwidth needs to the house of course. Look up how multiast works. The limit to the house will be on the order of 1 to x (say 5) channels at the same time depending on price/package, which of course determins bandwidth.
There are lots of interesting issues with how the TV bandwidth to the home works and where it has troubles, how to deal with home DSL use, etc. It's all about managing the QoS for both internet use and TV use. There are emerging standards for this all. See ATIS for telco directed standards and see MHP (and esp. GEM-IPTV) for IPTV standards used (and in many conutries, required by law).
As other posters have said, this is old news in the rest of the world. Bandwidth is a big issue for this since for a nice handful of channels (esp. HD) you want 10 to 50 Mbps, which is why the US telco's are still behind.
The interesting question though is will it be too late by the time telcos get into the TV game because it seems like the traditional spoon fed TV approach might be coming to an end anyway since VOD, iTunes, direct from broadcasters, etc., etc. may change everything.
Will be fun to watch. So to speak.
By AT&T... and dutifully turned over to the Bush administration, and just like your phone logs -- without a warrant ever being presented.
AT&T is using Microsoft's trouble-laden IPTV software.
By the way - was this made clear enough that this really isn't an innovation? I had this at my dorm through PurDigital (Biltmore Communications) a year ago in Atlanta. Way to go - a corporate behemoth taking years to catch up to a more innovative and agile competitive company, and then calling it something new and fantastic. Way to disenfranchise companies that may have a slight modicum of interest in the consumer. Biltmore also owned and operated the city's only publicly available WiFi, and operated at a loss so that GSU Faculty and Staff could take advantage of it. Their contract with the city screwed them...like most municipal policies of Atlanta. Anyway - I just wish someone would come out with something worth being ./-ed.
For once, please.
Bellsouth was recently acquired by AT&T. It's probably where they got their technology - playing the M$ game of innovation.
fast channel changing - What's slow about pushing the button and the next channel is there? I can't even blink that fast.
Actually fast channel changing is harder than you think. For multicast streaming, the channel change talks to the DSLAM up the road and says this is the service I want now (IP/port of the channel), the DSLAM switches to it if someone in the neighborhood already is on that channel (very fast), otherwise it needs to do some resource management and start receiving that channel, then send it on to the house. It's still very fast, but it might take a 1/2 second or so. Some good caching work of course can make it pretty instantainious, but we'll see if all the telco's do that right. And then the client software has to do all the switching and package checking and the like. That can be pretty instantainious if done right... then again, we'll see how they do.
But the poster has an excellent point. If all the IPTV providers do is offer the same. Then big yawn. It is still an alternative to the evil cable empire, which is a good thing. But come on, they're IP based. They can do anything interactive. They can integrate more powerful applications with TV. They can do all sorts of interactive applications. Come on people, innovate.
By the way, the DVR functionality is of course in the same set top box, you don't need a separate one just for DVR. An interesting thing about an IP based system though is that all of the boxes (and DVR(s)) are on the home network, so you can share.
In France we have free, which gives us 28Mbit ADSL (1Mbit up) with a static, 200 TV Channels (HD ready) and a phone line with unlimited free calls to 49 countries for a whisker inside EUR30 a month. These guys are making a profit of this too. It amazes me what you guys put up with in the US when it comes to voice & data connectivity, let alone entertainment! We have two for good measure.
I'd be interested to hear what you would pay for an equivalent service over there - I figure it's at least 3 figures and quite probably an order of magnitude more expensive.
It's quite sad really.
The rest of the world is running nicely via standard MHP/GEM-IPTV based systems, and for years before that earlier subsets of those standards. But for the US the telco's got suckered into MS. Apparently the MS execs talked to the teclo execs and made them offers (server software for discounts, etc., etc.), and now the teclos are stuck with crap.
In Europe you have ISP's serving 100,000 - 500,000 users per server. In the US will the MS crap, the telco's have to use one server for every few hundered users. Really sad.
And of course the TV software is total crap. Oh well. Better luck next time telcos. Here's a wild idea, have some technical people help you with those big technology decisions.
Here in the UK a service similar to this is being rolled out by British Telecom called 'BT Vision' which is more or less the same thing, it seems.
essentially what it boils down to is a freeview digital box with a download-on-demand broadband capability, which leaves something to be desired in my opinion. I hope AT&T can capitalise on this concept better than BT seem to have in a market where Sky and cable companies can offer you better service, cheaper and with less hassle.
will be available in parts of Southern California communities initially.
It is also available in San Antonio, TX, Dallas, TX, Austin, TX, Milwaukee, WI, and Indianapolis, IN. Source
Interesting. I hadn't heard anything about it, but I also didn't see anything that suggested they were using the new technology. I had Americast from Bellsouth years ago (probably 1999 or so) until MediaOne took over the service to my complex, and then got bought out by Comcast. I also don't see anything about the combined services so I think what Atlanta is getting is the old fiber delivery to the node that Americast used back then, and not the VDSL service that AT&T is likely using for the new system.
I already have that,(a BIG THANKS to all you tivo-ists out there, thanks for sharing), with a 3mb connection and bittorrent. It ain't rocket-surgery folks, I watch the shows a day later sometimes but I WATCH THEM WITHOUT COMMERCIALS, when I want and if i deem it necessary to HAVE them around I keep them, (another BIG THANKS the 500gb HD manufacturers). So while they try herding those cats, I'll be watching Dr. Who in sunny southern California. Thank you Nikola Tesla.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
The Spice Channel brought to you by AT&T.
AT&T: The Future of Phone Sex.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
This service has been available (and my relatives have had it) for a few months in the Kansas City Kansas (overland park) area.
.. you can have 4 seperate video streams online at once (with the DVR counting for two as needed). If you attempt to turn the 5th unit on (parents have 5) you will get a resource not available message.
.. but they run cat5 for all new outlets.
.. no analog of any kind naturally) and the fact that they remap the local broadcast channels to their original positions.
.. not much else to say about it. The manual refers to using a WEP key and SSID .. they actually configure WPA ., there is no option for a hardwired connection from what I saw.
,. some of the choices are a little weird, and the "basic cable" offerings are a different in terms of selections .. but that seems to vary where you live anyway.
First off, the system takes a little getting used to
This is exactly what is sounds like video over IP. They co-op the existing coax cable outlets for existing cable extentions
The only difference between the local time warner and this service is a small delay in changing all channels (since all are digital
They include a 2wire router
As far as the actual offering, it appears comperable to cable or directtv
So can the people that can get this join the 5 people out there that can get Verizon's FiOS service? I mean really, what's the point of these announcements when the tech isn't available to 99% of the rest of the country?
Sorry, I'm just sore at my current broadband options as I look to get a house. There doesn't seem to be any way to get digital cable (one box at that) and Internet anywhere from 3-4Mb down (either cable or DSL) for less than 90 bucks a month. And this was after *finally* finding a house in mid-Michigan that *had* broadband available. Cable penetration is almost nil here, in 2007. DSL is available to some places, but I don't want satellite TV, and don't need local phone service as I use my cell phone as my main phone. So I can expect to see this offering from ATT or something from Verizon somewhere in about 15 years, right?
Why does TV over IP have to come from the Internet provider? I'm really getting annoyed by all of this bundling of services. Here's what I'd like... a good, fast internet connection. Period. Let me worry about what I'm getting over that connection. Phone/TV/Music/Email. For once I'd love to see a company boast: We give you a rock solid, fast connection to the Internet and that's it. Enjoy.
I currently have Comcast (previously Adelphia). Back in the Adelphia days I had the internet only package. Life was good. Since the buyout, I have Comcast Internet plus a $15.00 you forgot to sign up for cable tv fee. I also have Vonage and use iTunes to purchase shows of interest. I'd love to subscribe to a few IPTV channels from say... the networks that air them. Does that make any sense? Or, is this the kind of thing that actually requires dedicated telco hardware to implement?
Yes, Slashdot-Kameraden, you can get the same kind of service from Deutsche Telekom
where they call it T-Home.
T-Home Classic (USD 68.26/m): Access to PPV movies, 6Mbit downstream DSL connection,
internet flat rate, access to overpriced internet phone srevice, outrageous phone plan.
T-Home Basic (USD 93.04/m): Access to PPV movies, Basic channels most you can get
over the air anyways, internet flat rate, access to overpriced internet phone service,
outrageous phone plan.
cellular.
T-Home Complete Plus (USD 112.98/m): Access to PPV movies, Basic channels, a set of
Premium channels, internet flat rate, access to overpriced internet phone service,
outrageous phone plan.
Oh and the "receiver" you have to use isn't free either, that's another USD 132.98
Telekom Heil!
Which is a better way to for fucktards like you to commit suicide
Finding a cliff or a bridge somewhere and jumping off
Slitting your fucking wrists
Hold a sawed-off shotgun in your mouth and shooting
Not sure what you mean by HD ready? Do you actually get HD channels?
I pay $109 per month for 30 Mbps down - 5 Mbps up IP service. All ports unlocked so I can and do run servers. TV is 331 channels including about 20 HD channels (4 are first run movie channels), and VOIP service. So while it is more expensive I do get some added features. It is definitely not close to an order of magnitude more expensive - if you consider taxes etc. I'd bet more like 2x, but with better features.
I think this announcement is motivated by Joost unveiling their service.
I think they're just trying to catch upto Joost.
Hmm... video on demand, over a phone line, using "internet technology"... you're talking about bittorrent.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
To replace it with pure copper like your grandparents had?
Back to the future using a phone system that Abe Simpson and Cletus would enjoy.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I had the good fortune to see a forerunner of this technology --- 40 years ago, at the AT&T pavilion at the New York Worlds Fair. It was called "picture-phone". Video over a telephone line. Very nice to see that they have finally brought it to market.
Uverse has been live since 2006 (while admittedly in a small geographic area). This is hardly news. http://www.uverseusers.com/
Why is this even news? This is old news!! AT&T rolled out U-Verse to mixed reviews in San Antonio last year. Since then they have expanded it to several markets including Kansas City, Houston, San Jose, St. Louis, etc. They are adding thousands of customers per week. Service is still getting mixed results. Suddenly, you guys are talking as if this is something new. The service uses VDSL + Private network for TV, IPTV DVR from Motorola (initially Tatung). The current limitation is only one HD program can be streamed at a time. Four SD programs can be streamed at a time. The service allocates up to 6 Mbps for Data. You only need one DVR at home and it can record up to four streams right now. Then other set top boxes around the house can be used to watch the programs recorded in the single DVR. Since I rely on OTA and don't pay for cable, this is not really news for me. The only thing that is exciting for me is that when U-verse comes near where I live, I could have the option of ditching voice line and get just VDSL.
[grumpyoldmanrant]
phones are for calling people.
[/grumpyoldmanrant]
FAQs are evil.
Dear Phone/Cable Companies:
I the consumer am no longer interested in channels, the packages they come in, nor the scheduling that you inflict on me. Give me a searchable catalog of every TV show and Movie from everywhere in the world in fairly high quality that I can watch buffered rather than compressed all to hell and streamed. Did I mention I want it on demand, and without the pay per view fees if I pay a monthly fee. I want the new movies the day they release in theaters, not six months later. (I don't give a good God damn about the theaters, why should you?) If I have to pay per view for the shows, then I want NO ADVERTISEMENTS, no more double dipping.
I am the consumer give me what I want and I'll give you what you want. If not then you get nothing, but I'll continue to obtain my media through other means.
That's great. AT&T/BS brags that they're rolling out even more toys for the urbans while ignoring the rest of their customers. Hell, I can't even get them to provide me with noise free POTS for my dial-up. Most days it takes a dozen attempts just to negotiate a successful handshake. Pitiful crap. Outdated copper technology and a physical plant that hasn't been updated for well over 30 years, at least around here. I log a repair request every Monday now.
My peace of mind does not depend on
U-verse is available in my neighborhood.
It's not telephone lines. They use fibre to get to an area and then run new copper lines to your house. Much like Verizon's FIOS which has recently started using copper for the house connections.
It's TV over IP. And the best part is that you must buy a special TV set. And the even best-ester part is that the TV runs a Microsoft OS.
AT&T is trying to play it as a network. Why? Because the cable companies have monopolies with the local governments. The cable companies are complaining that this is essentially a competing cable company. Only you get to buy a new compatible TV set.
Isn't it awesome?
Figure,
Out a way to get a repair person out to my home for a broken phone line in less than 4 days.
Or, provide a real person to talk to me on the phone on a service call.
Or, not bill me for items I never ordered.
Or, charge me less than 8 bucks a month for caller id.
Or, figure out a way to have a long distance call of 175 miles cost less than 25 cents a minute.
Or, act like something other than a monopolist.
Or. "Insert your own gripe here"
I'd be happy.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Actually, this isn't anything new. I've already got a buddy with this setup (here in Kansas City), said it was alright, and cheaper to roll everything together.
I don't care about who's doing what really, what I like is that the cable companies provided the means for competition with the phone companies (skype, vonage, im) and now phone companies are starting to compete back in kind. So hopefully in about ten more years when the services cable and phone companies offer are pretty-much equal with each other then the only thing they'll have left to compete on is price. And that's where you and I win.
Shh.
They installed the box up the street from me here in Austin over a year ago. 500 feet away means a potential 50M/50M or better connection to the DSLAM in that box. Someday. But right now they don't want to offer more than 6Mbits down for U-Verse DSL internet, and I'm happy with digital TV over an antenna.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I'm sorry, but this kinda shit will not cut it in the real world (or at least the rural world). I live in a small town that apparently can't get DSL, but thankfully i can get high speed from Comcast (wait, why did I say thankfully?) These services sound nifty and all, but hell, I mean it took 20 years to get cable to my neighborhood, and some of my neighbors still don't have it. Unless AT&T/Verizon/Quest are going to pipe Fibre to RURAL communities, well over half the population will miss out.
As stated many times above, it all comes down to making money
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
they like to try and make bills and screw with laws for this service. Have fun.
This is a good thing. Unless phone companies can bundle the triple play (voice, internet and tv), cable companies will be able to bundle and undercut and continue to provide a horrible customer experience. Competition is good. Besides, architecturally, IPTV has a considerable advantage. In theory, an IPTV provider can provide unlimited channels.
HD isn't mentioned and given the constraints of phone lines I'll bet it's not part of the plans. Interactive features could be stronger than cable, however.
"But AT&T claims that it offers customers more for their money, including three set-top boxes..."
Imagine all those extra blinkenlights and remote controls! Who can resist such an offer???
No sig today...
Here in Wisconsin, AT&T has been running a virulent astroturfing campaign via their fake storefront TV4US.COM. The bill that is currently in the state legislature, courtesy of this campaign and probably a few well placed simoleons, completely guts the current "Customer Bill of Rights" for video services. So, if the bill gets passed, the customer will have little or no recourse against AT&T, let alone any other provider, if the service takes a dump, does not perform as advertised, etc. At this rate and how little programming is out there that is appealing to me, I may chuck my video service, just watch the regular off-the-air services for their edited news, and listen to vinyl or CD's.
like SaskTel?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
(disclaimer: I work for SaskTel).
SaskTel does DTV over phone lines. In fact I'm at work troubleshooting them right now. Or not troubleshooting; it's fairly quiet since they are working well. Phone lines are definitely capable of HD, if the lines are fairly well taken care of.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
What happens to ATTBroadbandTV now ?
We will also have HD PVR service at some point...
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Sure there is. Contribute to Open Source video projects, seed appropriate torrents, and create video in new and exciting formats. I'm looking for a render_video@home ...have you seen one?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Fiber to the end of the block, then twisted pair to a 2-wire router in my basement. They'll route internally over coax or twisted pair (commonly the former if they do the internal wiring). The 2-wire router has three ports: IP of coax, 100baseT, and WiFi G. My connection is limited to 27Mbps down and 2Mbps up. Of that 27, I get 6 for general Internet use, the remaining 21 is for IPTV into a Motorola box running Microsoft IPTV. Of the 2Mbps up, I only get 1 for Internet use (what in the world does IPTV need 1Mbps up for???). My router claims a theoretical maximum 110Mbps down for me from the fiber on the curb. Dynamic IP addresses for now, with a 29-day lease (PITA). HD movies are nice (all 6 StarWars, just in time for the 30th anniversary). Internet speeds are nice. Price is decent. But what I really want is higher-def still, way faster Internet download, and a static IP address. Told this to their VP, got a nice reply that said little...
Where I live, we've had this for years. I am a subscriber to it.
I didn't think this was something new.
Here is their tv service web page:
http://www.mts.ca/tv/
I get my internet (DSL), telephone (analogue) and television (via set-top-box) all through my phone line from the local telephone company.
They are in direct competition with our local cable provider which provides the same three services.
We're sorry, the movie you requested is currently unavailable. For only 99 cents, we can call you when that movie becomes available.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I'm assuming that since the bandwith of DSL is smaller than Cable TV (but less than Cable internet). They're basically switching on the other end. Plus I doubt one can get HDTV through this service.
I'm getting symetric 50Mbps FTTH within a year in Paris for 30 (up from current 20/1 DSL2+)
That must be why you're so late in the game. This French ISP used Videolan Client to do the exact same shit, and delivered years ago. Probably cost them a whole lot less, too.
Seriously, what did ATT pay for this article^H^H^H^H^H^H ad?
Where do you think the bandwidth for this crap is going to come from... you've
guessed it. It'll be your P2P bandwidth. Providing you with an hour of television
cost them next to nothing or they even charge the content provider for it. Providing
you with that gigabyte of traffic you burned up in that same time cost them peering
charges.
What's more if you give them the ability to undercut cable and satellite by putting
"major" commercial broadcasters on their wires you're making it easier for those
to squeeze the internet stations we're all listen off the wire. The big guys can
easily afford the royalty payments and can buy away your favorite radio stations
bandwidth.
Where are you located that you get this service? I'm hoping here in Michigan that Comcast will man up now that ATT is allowed to give them competition.
How many fulltime jobs can one man have?
But but, Comcast keeps telling me how good they are, like how their 6MBit offering is 5 times faster than 1.2MB DSL. But hey, DSL's 6MB offering is 5 times faster than 1.2MB cable....but wait, what about guaranteed speed to the first 'hub'/'switch'? Or how about to the nearest DNS/news server on my Service Provider's network? "Up to 5 or 6 times faster", yeah, but 5-6x faster at 3am doesn't help me at 5-7pm when neighborhood congestion slows things down. Don't know about now, but I know they don't run a dedicated line to each subscriber and they used to oversubscribe neighborhoods giving speeds as low as 9600 baud. Doesn't happen with my DSL...I don't line share with anyone on the last leg. Comcrap doesn't get it. And yes -- their signal and service are both crappy. My cable bill is on auto-pay. One month, they were late in withdrawing payment -- so they penalized me for late payment. When I called to correct it, they issued a credit, but didn't factor in "interest", so I still have to call in again for another $1.20. credit.
It's not much, but that's why they screw things up -- hoping that customers will just let them keep the $1.20.
Multiply that by enough customers... Then they keep dropping channels every year. This year, they dropped two CW channels and are instead creating their own "internal feed" -- using the CW network feed, then adding their own local content, all because they can provide more advertising. As it is, they cut shows off early before the end of an "act" (or scene), to squeeze in another 15-30 seconds of playtime.
They also, in their extreme incompetence, have the timing off in stomping on network-fed commercial spots, so you'll see network commercials start for 1-2 seconds, then they are cut off with local comcraptic generated spots.
They also are super anal about cutting off feeds that duplicate local shows, even when the local shows are preempted, or have already shown (meaning you miss them), or when the local station is trying to kill the show's audience by putting it on in the 1-6am timeslot. Used to be Andromeda, Mutant X, Stargate, and Outer Limits could all be seen Saturday afternoon, but now they're blocked with the local affiliate showing them in a 1-5am timeslot Sunday morning. Get to sit through tons of "Red-Hot Dateline Girls" ads...yeah...with real live local girls!! That and 2x times the ads with storyline cut to allow the extra advertising.
Oh, yeah, an they really muck up the sound on some stations -- like down-mixing 5.1 Dolby signals from digital by dropping the center and back channels and upping the bass out the side channels. Makes voices, often unintelligible -- they do it alot on the Sci-Fi channel -- a friend who used to have the problem on Comcrap moved to a different suburb and got Cox. All the problems with volume, commercial cutting, and station blocking went away. Amazing how many vendors/merchants now gouge customers as standard business because they can.
Just mentioning their crap service gets me all wound up...
San Antonio has had it for some time, and a few other places. ATT last month said it was spending another $2 Billion (1000 million) to calm fears that it was trashing it (IPTV is MS's, and everybody is scared for some reason).
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/uverse
I dont care if theyre offering solid gold bricks for a dollar, AT&T isnt worthy of eating my dogs shit. Id sooner feed my testicles to rabid monkeys than give them a dime.
-- X-longtime AT&T customer
I had gotten tired of AT&T delivering on the "high speed" DSL they had offered, 3 Mb/s, out of which I was lucky to get 1.7. I asked several times, and was told only that the phone lines in my neighborhood had to be upgraded. So I went and dropped the DSL account, for the first time since 1998, and got a cable modem. It actually said 3 Mb/s, and I got 2987 or thereabouts.So I phoned up AT&T to quit a couple of days later, and they said, "But U-Verse is available in your area as of May 1."
I'd get fiber to the door, and initially I could get 6 Mb/s lines. So that was the "line upgrade" they talked about. And then, there were the cable TV offereings. Yawn. Any thoughts I had of cancelling the cable modem and switching back came to an abrupt end.
I agree with the previous posters: the company that delivers a-la-carte programming first will win this whole market. It could take many forms. Adding just the channels you want might be part of it. But even better would be the finest-grain solution possible: I'll take the Daily Show, Frontline, etc., and nothing else. Maybe a decent basic tier plus my favorite shows. Oh, and the odd movie as it becomes available, as long as I can burn it to DVD and keep it.
Yet another telco brings TV over their phonelines. This has been done for over a year now.
Slow newsday?
news to the left coast!! but here in south central ky. i"ve had tv, dsl, and phone for five years!!!
You didn't answer
The big beige boxes been springing up all around my area. One very large one was put in about a block away over a year ago. Late last year they ran fiber from it & put up another big beige box right to my condo complex. I was quite excited. Went so far as to bring beverages out to the workers. When?!...I would ask, WHEN!?
You see, I've been stuck with Comcrap, Wide Open West is too expensive, no dish allowed, & DSL was not available. When Comcrap took over Mediaone, service went from barely tolerable to worse. After a few years Comcrap worked out most problems but still has very slow uploads & bittorrent's are way slow. In the last year speeds slow to a crawl during prime time. They re-wired old high-rise apartment buildings nearby & added 1000s of customers. Complaint after complaint & no fix.
Now AT&T is offering this U-Verse thing. Yep, all the same stuff Comcraps been trying to get me to subscribe to for years. Nothing new here everyone says. What's the difference? Up front, what makes this huge for me, is cost. If I switch, I can get the 3 set-top boxes (with DVR), all that stuff that comes with it (like HDTV), all for slightly more than I pay now. Plus 6 down/1 up DSL that might even be somewhere near advertised speeds.
DUMP COMCRAP! Years of problems, more than I care to list but one more "I'm sorry sir, but you need to understand the nature of the Internet, we can't guarantee speeds" & I am going to pull the phone out of the wall.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
I have 3 Rogers HD STBs in my house, each of which suck down 19~ Mbps. On top of that my Internet connection sucks down another 750kbps.
You're trying to tell me they have tech. that allows DSL to go 60+ Mbps now?
If so then why do DSL internet speeds still suck so much? I was always under the impression that phone lines and junctions in NA are too old to stably handle the kind of bandwidth being talked about.
Helloooo, rest of the world!
Your shoelaces are untied.
It's over $100 dollars you've got to add tax + the cost of a phone line. I currently have ATT internet it runs over $30 since I have to get their phone line at $7 + $7 tax. I bought the cheap package for both phone and net. Does this thing dial home over through a modem like some boxes do? If it does I would have to upgrade my phone account to allow more than 10 outgoing calls.
San Antonio as well, but the fact the box was running MS was a complete turn off.
Or how about to the nearest DNS/news server on my Service Provider's network?
If you're that concerned about speed to your ISP's news server the you are surely a media pirate.
Expect a visit from the *AA within 8-10 business days.
Trolling is a art,
New Jersey.
This is not new , AT&T started offering U-verse in my area last summer, giving first 3 months for free. .....I can build a friggin satellite dish in 3 days.
:)
But when I saw three AT&T trucks in front of my neighbors house for 10 days straight I became suspicions.
So when they called me with the pitch I ask how long would the install take,
BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION 3 DAYS !
I'm not going for their beta , I'll wait for Service Pack 1
btw - it was $20 cheaper per month than COMcrap w/ faster Internet up and down
chyllaxyn
http://bardt-links.com/
You know AT&T isn't going to offer this type of service to any neighborhood
:| ) and it may come back
that isn't considered somewhat ' upscale '. It would be a waste of money.
They plan on targeting those neighborhoods that they believe can afford
this type of service. Verizon is the same way.
My biggest concern would be the bandwidth usage. It has to be a fixed pipe
to the home so trying to watch an HD channel or two ( multiple receivers ? )
while the kids are gaming it up would be pushing the bandwidth a bit I
think. Which has priority I wonder. . . . TV or net ? Can it be set from
the DSL modem or does AT&T have the final say so on it ?
On a related note, it's my opinion that AT&T isn't thinking as far into the
future as Verizon is ( They're running fiber all the way to the home instead
of going the cheaper route and using copper the last bit. Guess the money
they saved went into Ed's golden retirement fund. . .
to bite them in the ass. The fiber is going to allow a much bigger bandwidth
pipe for Verizon so they'll have room to grow for future applications. Whereas
AT&T will reach a bandwidth limit far sooner and will ultimately have to lay
fiber anyway to stay competitive.
Unfortunately, we all know that where Verizon FIOS is available, U-Verse
isn't and vice versa. All depends on whose territory you happen to live in.
So the phone companies don't really have to worry about competition from each
other, it's actually the phone companies vs cable.
So while both companies strut their stuff, if you don't live in the right
area, ( read that high dollar neighborhoods ) you don't get squat ! lol
AT&T has been offering this service for well over a year, and Los Angeles is just the most recent city to be turned up, service already exists in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, and others. I'm surprised Slashdot is this far behind the curve....
2.C.ii. IP Television (IPTV)
The growth of satellite service, digital cable, video-on-demand (VoD) and of high-definition television (HDTV) has revolutionized the video market, but a new technology threatens to shake things up even more. IP television (IPTV) works just like VoIP, but for video rather than voice. The difference between IPTV and basic cable is that channels are not all transmitted simultaneously (Figure 2.3). The transmission of video as a data stream is nothing new; online news websites, e-learning tools, and video conferencing have utilized streaming video for over a decade, but the quality was never high enough for television. IPTV uses the same principal but harnesses the power broadband services like VDSL and fiber to deliver broadcast-quality video services. New quality standards have helped eliminate the poor quality video and choppy, tin-can-sounding audio often associated with streaming video. Because it permits two-way communication, it can support advanced features like video-on-demand, personal media channels, and digital video recorder (DVR).
IP television can transmit video directly to users for 'on-demand' video and DVR applications, or multicast to many users much like traditional broadcast television. Though multicast technology provides the answer to the problem of pumping the same content out to millions of subscribers simultaneously, individual video streams must be generated for VoD and other services. This content streams from a VoD server at the local distribution office.
Though more flexible and (potentially) cheaper than traditional cable, the system is very expensive in terms of bandwidth [4]. While video is able to ride the super-fast core network to the CO, a bottleneck becomes apparent as it nears the living room: the local DSL loop. Streaming all channels requires gigabits of bandwidth, but even the newest ADSL technology tops out at around 25 Mbits/s. So how do you send hundreds of channels to an IPTV subscriber with using DSL? Simple: you get rid of the DSL and run fiber directly to the customer, or only send a few channels at a time (let's assume it's the latter for now). There is in fact no such thing as "tuning" anymore--the box is simply an IP receiver. For IPTV to become a viable whole-house solution though, it will also need to support enough simultaneous channels to allow televisions in different rooms to display different content. Juggling the resulting IP traffic is one of the trickiest parts of making IPTV work. The actual number of simultaneous streams supported per consumer varies by network, but it's rarely more than four standard-definition channels or one HDTV channel. Phone companies have much to gain from this technology; currently satellite providers are the only competition to the cable giants. [4]
over their own lines. How are they going to deliver interactive TV?
They were promising they were going to deliver 20Mbps DSL in a year about two years ago when I tried to upgrade my DSL from 1.5 to 3Mbps. Then they had to reneg on the 3Mbps because I was over 10,000 feet from the CO (without bothering to tell me they had reneged, either, until I asked them about the slow bandwidth I was paying for.)
Anybody who believes AT&T about anything probably believes Microsoft, too.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Duh! Uverse has been out since (at least?) the summer/fall of 2006. How 'bout something just a TAD bit new on /. - huh?
Lots of info and pictures to look at
http://www.s4biturbo.com/
As other posters have pointed out, there are NO new features in this package that don't already exist virtually everywhere else.
Unless you can't get cable or satellite where you live.
FWIW, Fairpoint Communications competes against cable in its markets with video over DSL and has a quarter of the market or so.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It was actually first offered in San Antonio, TX, then branched out, as this is where AT&T HQ is at.
I've had this since it rolled out about a year ago.
1. Love having the DVR. Too bad there's only one. Too bad the limit is four TV streams.
2. Then again, they're pumping 24 MB/sec down my old copper phone line and I recorded four movies all at once from different channels the other night. Amazing!
3. It's been a heck of a better deal than cable. We pay less, yet we now get Showtime and Starz channels that would have cost a fortune on Time Warner.
4. There is some pixelation that is irritating. Maybe you don't get that with HDTV. I wouldn't know.
READ the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other amendments! http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/const.html
Express
Downstream up to 1.5 Mbps
Upstream up to 1 Mbps
This is a selling point for me in itself.