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AT&T Is Phasing Out the U-Verse Video, Broadband Brand (fiercetelecom.com)

Posted by msmash on from the rebranding dept.

AT&T is killing off the 'U-Verse' brand after its $69 billion acquisition of DirecTV. AT&T's broadband and phone services will now be called AT&T Internet and AT&T Phone. The company says the move will bring "simplicity" across the swaths of services it offers. FierceTelecom adds: This transition should not be of any great surprise as the same trend has been taking place with U-verse TV. AT&T has been driving new TV customers to its DirecTV satellite service, a process that could enable the telco to use the additional bandwidth to increase broadband speeds. While AT&T is still supporting current U-verse IPTV customers, the telco has not indicated how long they will continue to offer that service. Additionally, AT&T may also phase out the DirecTV name at some point, but industry insiders said that won't occur until it launches its streaming video service under DirecTV. AT&T has already been moving away from the U-Verse name by directing new TV customers to the company's DirecTV satellite TV service. The company will likely then use the freed bandwidth from that transition to improve overall broadband speeds. Existing U-Verse TV customers are being supported for now, but it's unclear how long that will last.The Hollywood Reporter states that the move is also necessary because AT&T plans to launch three streaming video services next quarter.

44 comments

  1. Just dumped our U-Verse service... by JargonScott · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I had an 18Dn/1Up plan (living in the sticks Indiana), and on their little exit interview they asked why I'm leaving:

    "Well, your service went down at least a full day of every month, and the new local provider offers fiber to my house, 50Dn/10Up speeds, and costs less."

    The girl didn't even try. "Ok, well that makes sense."

    --
    Nuke Gay Whales for Jesus.
    1. Re:Just dumped our U-Verse service... by jetkust · · Score: 2

      This. My U-verse service was out like every week (tv, interenet, and dvr access to my RECORDINGS). I spent more time trying to get the service fixed than I was actually using it. When the girl asked why I was leaving I basically said I don't think they're even able to provide the service. She half tried to send another tech out, but she knew it was over.

    2. Re:Just dumped our U-Verse service... by amxcoder · · Score: 2

      I had the 18/1 plan as well for several years, and while I didn't have many service interruptions at all, the ceiling on the speed they could offer was a big factor in why I left. Once I decided to cut the cord and not do a traditional TV service, I wanted more bandwidth to make sure I could stream to several TV's simultaneously from HD sources and they couldn't provide much higher speed. And the price for that speed was the price that Comcast was charging for 100/10 service. The speed they can't compete on.

      I don't think the IPTV service uses that much bandwidth either, so I doubt their "use the extra bandwidth for higher speed" suggestion will make much of a difference. When I looked at the gateway, I had 2 bonded lines running to me that provided 15Mb on each line, so total to my house was 30Mb/s. The highest speed I got on speedtest was 23Mb/s. If I had both TV's going, I might see my max internet speed drop to like 20Mb/s. This tells me that at most, their IPTV bandwidth was using less than 10Mb/s unless I"m overlooking something.

      Freeing up that extra 10Mbs still won't get them anywhere close to what the other guys are able to achieve. Nevermind the pricepoint comparisons, just talking max speed.

    3. Re:Just dumped our U-Verse service... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hoosier here. Can you name your other provider? I'm itching to get rid of my horrendously overpriced 18/1 U-verse with 1/2 of the bonded pair continually out. 50/10 for less money would make me and my family soooo pleased...

    4. Re:Just dumped our U-Verse service... by FrankHaynes · · Score: 1

      Your U-Verse TV box tells the head-end what channel you want to watch and that's the only channel sent down the wire to your box, so it's not wasting bandwidth streaming other channels that you're not watching.

      That quoted excerpt from the article above is all over the place and made little sense to me.

      --
      slashdot: A failed experiment.
    5. Re:Just dumped our U-Verse service... by amxcoder · · Score: 1

      Yes, this is true, they only send you what you are requesting... but they do leave some fixed overhead in their provisioning still over what your internet data plan is. They still need enough overhead for multiple streams, because their DVR can record up to 4 streams at the same time, so if a box was maxing out like this, it would need at least 4x the bandwidth of a single channel. Also depending on the installation, you could have 2,3,4 or more receivers in the house. The setup I had didn't allow each receiver to record 4 channels each, only a single box had the DVR functionality, and the other players shared the recording list...But you could still watch a live TV channel on these other boxes. Not sure how much bandwidth a single HD channel uses, but if you had like 4 channels recording and a couple other receivers watching live TV, you could in theory have 6+ streams coming in simultaneously.

  2. How will that save bandwidth? by omnichad · · Score: 1

    Clearing out U-Verse IPTV and then offering streaming packages instead will not free up bandwidth. Sounds like they're rebranding U-Verse TV to DirecTV and changing the backend technology to open up access to people without AT&T Internet. I guess they realized they don't have to limit their TV market only to their phone territories.

    1. Re:How will that save bandwidth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clearing out U-Verse IPTV and then offering streaming packages instead will not free up bandwidth. Sounds like they're rebranding U-Verse TV to DirecTV and changing the backend technology to open up access to people without AT&T Internet. I guess they realized they don't have to limit their TV market only to their phone territories.

      Sure it will .. streaming isn't steady state.. it rolls with the timezone. U-Verse IPTV is pretty much steady state as people are recording at all hours and the STBs
      are constantly checking for updates and updating.

      I'm on 1Gb/1Gb service (yes, I have fiber to the house) and from 6am to midnight .. I average 750Mb/550Mb. Midnight to 6am it pushes up to 950Mb/750Mb and I can watch the software updates and programming guide up date flow in.

    2. Re:How will that save bandwidth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In most areas the total bandwidth to the house is 30-50 Mbps, but they artificially cap the bandwidth provided to you at 18 Mbps. The extra capacity is reserved so that their Uverse TV Service can always be provisioned in the future.

    3. Re:How will that save bandwidth? by Megane · · Score: 1

      They have definitely been pushing DirecTV hard over the past year or so since buying them: a DirecTV flyer in almost every weekly stack of junk mail, plus almost monthly direct mail to existing U-Verse customers, even those with their IPTV service.

      I think the main reason to abandon the IPTV has to be that they've finally realized that the last mile bandwidth on crap copper is just too precious to use more than 50% of it to stream TV (and FWIW, they charge $10/mo extra for the privilege of receiving HD, probably to discourage the higher usage), so now that they own DirectTV they'd rather shill that than actually install the fiber that they've been putting off for decades. That's going to bite them in the ass eventually. When they installed U-Verse at my mom's house, the tech had to try a second and a third copper pair to get one that would even work.

      Sure, it's technically cool to push video over VDSL2, but it's simply more economical to push one-way content from a satellite. Coax works so well because it's a wideband system, and it's even possible to put a one-way wideband signal on fiber separate along with data, but DSL has a much lower bandwidth limit over a pair of aging copper wires.

      Meanwhile, I'm moving from one Google Fiber city where it wouldn't have reached me for years anyhow (far NW Austin), to another (San Antonio) where it also probably won't reach me for years.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    4. Re:How will that save bandwidth? by FrankHaynes · · Score: 1

      so now that they own DirectTV they'd rather shill that than actually install the fiber that they've been putting off for decades

      I think both AT&T and Verizon are struck by the staggering costs of installing new infrastructure, as hasn't Verizon scaled back or stopped the deployment of FiOS fiber to the home? Even the mighty, mighty Google has been pumping the brakes on fiber roll-outs.

      --
      slashdot: A failed experiment.
    5. Re:How will that save bandwidth? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Dude, do you not understand corporations one little bit. Why do any investment at all in new infrastructure if you can force the use of the existing infrastructure, by corruptly lobbying and shutting out competitors, controlling backbone choke points and strangling out competitors by blocking people from selling content without using you as the publisher by strangling off their distribution.

      Incumbents with streaming services wanting net neutrality banned, I wonder why. Either you pay the to publish or you pay them to allow you to publish at the exact same rate as their publishing percentage 30% or more of revenue. Corporate taxes charged against the end user via collusion with corrupt governments, the only kind of taxes corporations approve of.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    6. Re:How will that save bandwidth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DirecTV requires 2 yr contract but only 1 yr of teaser rates...lol get fucked at&t

  3. Good by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 1

    Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish!

    --
    "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
    --- Jerry Garcia
  4. For "simplicity" read by fredrated · · Score: 0

    "increased profits".

    1. Re:For "simplicity" read by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If a business segment is unprofitable, I'm curious what you think to what extent and interests it behooves AT&T to continue running it? Is making less profit a moral obligation? If so is it always applicable, or does it "kick in" after a certain point?

    2. Re:For "simplicity" read by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As a stockholder, count me in on that one.

  5. No way in Hell! by methano · · Score: 1

    There's no way in Hell that any telecommunications company does anything to bring simplicity to the customer. Confusion and obfuscation are the hallmarks of the telecommunications industry. The lingua franca, if you will. They don't know how to do it any other way. This is just a way to screw up guys who got Uverse to get away from the hell of Time-Warner Cable. Don't believe it for a second.

  6. U-Verse sucks anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The connection goes down at least twice a day.

  7. American Telegraph Telephone & Television by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If we are looking for simplicity; Just add an extra T.

    1. Re:American Telegraph Telephone & Television by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They should have stays with telegraph. it faster than u-verse.

    2. Re:American Telegraph Telephone & Television by sabbede · · Score: 1

      Is there an RFC for IP via Morse code?

  8. What about "fast access"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does this mean they'll stop advertising uverse speeds and prices to people still on the old bellsouth "fastaccess" plans? Maybe we can finally get some price/performance parity there...

  9. I wish by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    I wish I was rich enough to throw away $69 billion worth of something.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  10. Will they stop knocking on my door? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I cut all ties to AT&T years ago because they can't fix a corroded tap on the pole, told them to stop knocking on my door trying to sell me U-verse, put up a "No Soliciting" sign, emailed them demanding to be put on a no contact list and got a reply saying I was, let the dogs bark at them, slam the door in their face, yelled at them, etc. They're worse than the frigging Jehovahs Witlesses and continue to knock on my door.

  11. AT&T DSL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Many people still only have AT&T DSL option, even though AT&T called it U-verse, too.

    1. Re:AT&T DSL? by Megane · · Score: 1

      They started deprecating the old ADSL-1 service four or five years ago, at least in the SBC areas. Proper U-Verse is VDSL-2, but I'm sure there are still plenty of areas which never got the Project Lightspeed (FTTN) upgrades. Also, those upgrades date back to the days when it was still SBC (Southwestern Bell Co.), so it will probably vary based on what the RBOC was doing when acquired.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  12. They should do a dual system main sat backup / oth by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    They should do a dual system main sat backup / other stuff like some locals IPTV.

    Also put some JIT alt / over flow feeds on IPTV.

  13. No reason to celebrate for me by Bruinwar · · Score: 2

    I used to have Uverse. A couple years ago I asked Comcrap to beat their prices & they did, substantially. Lately I've been eyeing Uverse again because Comcrap's deals will expire sometime soon. Condo here, no dish allowed.

    Losing competition is not something to celebrate. Not everyone can have a dish & I'm sure Comcrap knows that.

    --
    SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
    1. Re:No reason to celebrate for me by gymbrown · · Score: 1

      If you have an area under your exclusive control (yard or balcony), you can install a dish https://www.fcc.gov/media/over.... If your condo is in a single building, then you might go to the HOA board to have access (not likely). In our case, our condo consists of small lots and the only restriction is to have the dish hidden from common areas, if possible). If you want to try, DirecTV has a program to allow multiple owners to share a disk. If you are brave enough to go to the board with a proposal you might start with https://support.directv.com/ap....

      --
      Embrace the future.
    2. Re:No reason to celebrate for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Condo here, no dish allowed.

      Federal law forbids condos, complexes of apartments, or landlords from disallowing satellite dishes which are nondestructively installed. Comcrastic had a lot of illegal deals with kickbacks to apartments across the US in order to monopolistically block competition so the Feds outlawed prohibitions against using a Dish.

      Source: I used to install such systems and had the management of complexes charged and gates forcibly opened in several instances. (They still try to form and uphold such illegal deals.)

    3. Re:No reason to celebrate for me by Bruinwar · · Score: 1

      HA! Let's see what the board has to say bout that! I might still have a line of sight issue.

      --
      SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
    4. Re:No reason to celebrate for me by Bruinwar · · Score: 1

      Interesting. I might be able to pull something off but as I said elsewhere, I might still have a line of sight issue.

      --
      SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
    5. Re:No reason to celebrate for me by Megane · · Score: 1

      Of course if you're in a north-facing apartment, you're still basically fucked. GEO is southward in the northern hemisphere.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    6. Re:No reason to celebrate for me by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Some organizations just hope you're clueless of your rights, but others, particularly smaller groups, are legitimately clueless themselves. It can save everyone a lot of grief if you show up with the FCC OTARD printed out, in-hand:

      https://www.fcc.gov/media/over...

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    7. Re: No reason to celebrate for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And how do you get the coaxial in from your balcony in a non destructive way? We couldn't get dish at an apartment because the installer couldn't drill a hole in the wall to get the cable inside from our private area.

    8. Re: No reason to celebrate for me by evilviper · · Score: 1

      how do you get the coaxial in from your balcony in a non destructive way?

      Most weather stripping around doors will compress quite nicely and makes more than enough room for a coaxial cable. It works best in a corner.

      You probably also have a window available, and there are lots of nice flat coax adapter cables available:

      http://amazon.com/dp/B001WAPIR...

      http://amazon.com/dp/B01DVKOOA...

      http://amazon.com/dp/B005F0QIL...

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  14. Too bad my parents don't have direct line of sight by jbarr · · Score: 1

    We just signed up my parents for U-Verse TV & Internet because DirectTV cannot get a direct line of sight from their Independent Living unit.

    --
    My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
  15. Just in time by tylersoze · · Score: 1

    Oh good just in time for me to dump for Google fiber.

  16. Note to ATT: by Narcocide · · Score: 1

    Could you phase The Anime Network and the rest of the free network on-demand channels back in for HD DirecTivo users, please? (By that I mean please fix the bug that has persisted with it for the last 3 years that DirecTV seemed too incompetent to even diagnose. I know you have a lot more tech support resources, this should be a really simple one for you guys, and you would look like heroes.)

  17. Streaming DirecTV by Archfeld · · Score: 1

    My DirecTV on demand streaming service has gone to crap since AT&T acquired it. I can stream Netflix and Amazon at the same time, without an issue but watch a DirecTV stream on demand by itself and it stutters and pause quite often, in ways in which it never did prior to the acquisition.

    --
    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
  18. So like Johnny Mnemonic then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Life imitates Art.

  19. then get ready to lose most urban contracts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    since most apartment dwellers do not have roof access or permission to run cables to individual units, and larger apartment buildings simply do not have enough roof real estate to support dish based services, getting rid of terrestrial wire based services means all those users are lost.

  20. They will need to force me to leave... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have had U-Verse for the last 5 years. Just like any other service, it's YMMV but I can count on one hand the number of outages that I have experienced and all were resolved in a timely fashion.

    I live in Coral Springs, FL. The only other option is Advanced Cable, which is contracted by the city and they are absolutely horrid. DirecTV is not an option for me as I live in a townhouse and my balcony faces the opposite direction that I need. I get numerous postcards and emails about switching, but I refuse to do so.