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AT&T Plans 5G Network Trial for DirecTV Customers (fortune.com)

Posted by msmash on from the it's-happening dept.

AT&T said it plans to test its high-speed wireless 5G network, which reached speeds of 14 gigabits per second in lab trials, for customers of its online streaming television service, DirecTV Now, in Austin, Texas. From a report on Fortune: The U.S. wireless carrier, which plans to conduct the trial in the first half of 2017, has also teamed up with Qualcomm and Ericsson for mobile and broadband trials of the 5G network in the second half of the year. New 5G networks are expected to provide speeds at least 10 times and maybe 100 times faster than today's 4G networks, giving the potential to connect at least 100 billion devices with download speeds that can reach 10 gigabits per second.

44 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. How many seconds by daninaustin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many seconds of data before you reach your monthly data allotment? ATT will find a way to stick it to you on your bill.

    1. Re:How many seconds by bondsbw · · Score: 4, Informative

      It appears their current highest data cap is 100GB (at $450 plus device access charge and other fees). At 10 Gbps, that would last around 1 minute, 20 seconds. That comes to $5.63 per second.

      Those are theoretical speeds and most of us won't ever see them in real life. Still, data caps need to change dramatically as speeds see such increases.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    2. Re:How many seconds by EvilSS · · Score: 1

      Don't worry! DirecTV Now is Zero Rated on AT&T's mobile networks so it won't use any of your data! And all it costs is the death of net neutrality!

      --
      I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
    3. Re:How many seconds by kelemvor4 · · Score: 1

      Don't worry! DirecTV Now is Zero Rated on AT&T's mobile networks so it won't use any of your data! And all it costs is the death of net neutrality!

      The price has already been paid in that case...

    4. Re:How many seconds by tsqr · · Score: 1

      How many seconds of data before you reach your monthly data allotment? ATT will find a way to stick it to you on your bill.

      I see this sort of comment quite frequently, and it doesn't make much sense to me. Clearly you will use more data if you keep your connection maxxed out, but that isn't how most people operate. Higher bandwidth does not mean you use more data to stream a movie; it just means you're less likely to have to put up with intermittent buffering. Higher bandwidth does not make the files you download larger, it just lets you acquire them more quickly. So exactly how does a higher connection speed force you to reach your monthly data allotment faster?

    5. Re:How many seconds by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      If they use muilt-cast like the IPTV U-verse tv system then not so much.

      But if they want to get very evil have the installer miss aim the dish so it's easy to get rain fade and when that 16 tuner box switches to cell it's overeager city and even if with an auto cut off that takes 1 hour you can rack up a lot at $10 a gig.

    6. Re:How many seconds by EvilSS · · Score: 1

      If they use muilt-cast like the IPTV U-verse tv system then not so much.

      But if they want to get very evil have the installer miss aim the dish so it's easy to get rain fade and when that 16 tuner box switches to cell it's overeager city and even if with an auto cut off that takes 1 hour you can rack up a lot at $10 a gig.

      This is for DirecTV Now, not regular DirecTV. DirecTV Now is an Over The Top (OTT) streaming TV service from DirecTV. It competes with SlingTV and Playstation Vue. There is no dish involved.

      --
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    7. Re:How many seconds by SubtleGuest · · Score: 1

      Well what is the point of higher connection speed if you don't use it for large transfers? They pose the question because the speeds vs. data cap ratio are ridiculously silly. A super fast internet connection you can barely use is worthless.

    8. Re:How many seconds by EvilSS · · Score: 1

      Well it's a great way to show how caps are not growing in any sort of realistic proportion to bandwidth speeds. And that's important. Faster internet opens up more use cases for the user. For example: 6mb/s? I'll just buy that 30gb Xbox game on disk (and still suffer through a multi-gig day-1 patch). 100mb/s? Digital it is! Yay! no more swapping discs! Want to stream 4K UHD content? Not with that 6mb/s you aren't. 30mb/s? Go for it! Oh look, true BD level HD streams? You're gonna need a bigger pipe!

      There are plenty of other examples. The problem as the connections get faster, if the cap's don't increase (or, you know, just go the fruck away) in proportion then it's making all that new speed somewhat pointless since I can't really utilize if for new things, I can just do the things I do now faster. And if I already have sufficient bandwidth for doing what I do now, then there is no point to increasing it.

      There is a point from the carrier's perspective however. When speeds increase but the usage per user doesn't they can get more users per tower, since the actual time each user is utilizing the available spectrum for the tower goes down. That 20mb email pull goes from 5 seconds to 1 second. Same amount of data from the user perspective, but it frees up 4 seconds of utilization from the tower's perspective. The exception, of course, is streaming audio/video. In this case since AT&T owns DirecTV Now in this case, they can use the free data to lock you in to both their video service and data service, so it's still a win. For them.

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    9. Re:How many seconds by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      they will join them all together or at least iptv and sat.

    10. Re:How many seconds by EvilSS · · Score: 1

      they will join them all together or at least iptv and sat.

      They are not putting cellular modems in their DTV boxes. That would be beyond useless and since the data is zero rated on their network, it would make no sense to do it from their perspective anyway.

      --
      I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
    11. Re:How many seconds by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      How many seconds of data before you reach your monthly data allotment?

      The same as on 4G. When I visit Slashdot.com I get sent 1.5MB of data regardless if I'm on 3G, 4G or 5G. The difference is I don't have to wait around on a loading screen with 5G.

    12. Re:How many seconds by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 2

      Higher bandwidth does not mean you use more data to stream a movie

      Actually, in most cases it does. The provider automatically selects the video quality based on the available bandwidth, so more bandwidth available equals more bandwidth—and data—used for the same duration of video. Up to a point, anyway: 4K or UHD video, the current "gold standards", require 35-45 Mbps; this is also the approximate maximum bitrate supported by Blu-ray discs. At that rate you'd need to download a GB every 3.5 minutes, or over 24 GB for a typical 1.5 hour movie. I suspect the peak mobile bandwidth available in most places is considerably less than 40 Mbps, though results may vary in major metropolitan areas.

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
    13. Re:How many seconds by tsqr · · Score: 1

      For example: 6mb/s? I'll just buy that 30gb Xbox game on disk (and still suffer through a multi-gig day-1 patch). 100mb/s? Digital it is! Yay! no more swapping discs!

      You would download Xbox games on your mobile device? I must admit, I didn't consider that use case.

      Want to stream 4K UHD content? Not with that 6mb/s you aren't. 30mb/s? Go for it!

      I salute you for possessing the visual acuity to fully enjoy UHD video on your phone's screen.

      I can just do the things I do now faster

      And there we are. This is the main reason everybody and their mother moved from dial-up to ISDN to ADSL and on and on to the latest broadband technology. Also the reason most people cite for upgrading to faster computers and to solid state drives.

      Speaking of SSDs, I've never heard of anyone saying, "My new drive is 10X faster than the old one; it needs to be 10X larger so I won't fill it up too fast (not to be confused with the common "cost per gigabyte compared to platters" complaint).

    14. Re:How many seconds by tsqr · · Score: 1

      Well what is the point of higher connection speed if you don't use it for large transfers?

      From my point of view, that's like asking, "What is the point of a faster disk drive if you don't use it to store more data?" The point of a higher connection speed is that regardless off the size of the transfer, the data you are transferring gets to you faster. You get a more responsive system. By the way, none of this should be taken as meaning I'm not in favor of larger (or non-existing) data caps. I just don't agree that 10X higher connection speed translates to needing 10X higher data allotment.

    15. Re:How many seconds by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      No IPTV can can be fed over copper / fiber / cell out the att router box.

    16. Re:How many seconds by tsqr · · Score: 1

      When I see "in most cases" in reference to video streaming, I think "Netflix". Netflix says UHD video is 7 GB/hr, or 10.5 GB for a typical 1.5 hr movie; HD is 3 GB/hr, or 4.5 GB for a typical 1.5 hr movie. But you won't see an auto-switch from HD to UHD unless you're paying Netflix a premium for UHD content. And if you're watching on your phone, you can manage cellular data usage separately in your Netflix account settings.

    17. Re:How many seconds by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 1

      Netflix says UHD video is 7 GB/hr, or 10.5 GB for a typical 1.5 hr movie

      You can certainly compress UHD video (or just about any resolution) down to 20 Mbps or less, but quality will suffer as a result. What is the point of ultra-high-resolution video with visible compression artifacts? Streaming at Blu-ray-equivalent video quality would require around 40 Mbps. This also happens to be in line with the Youtube UHD video upload guidelines.

      Specific content providers may, of course, offer varying levels of control over video quality, at their discretion. At the moment there is no uniform system in place to give the user control over bandwidth consumption across all sites and applications. Netflix cuts some corners to save bandwidth, but not everyone else does the same.

      In the end, even 10 GB for 1.5 hours of entertainment isn't much better than 24 GB when a typical mobile plan includes less than half that amount for the entire month. The biggest single-line plan Verizon currently offers (32 GB for ~$155/mo. + taxes and fees) would cover three films, more or less, in overcompressed quasi-UHD. Three movies in a month is hardly extravagant—and there is no requirement that you actually watch the video on your smartphone. Streaming in UHD to a smart TV or set-top box is not unreasonable, and in some places mobile providers are the only real options for Internet access.

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
    18. Re:How many seconds by EvilSS · · Score: 1

      No IPTV can can be fed over copper / fiber / cell out the att router box.

      Yes it can but what does that have to do with the article here, specifically talking about their new 5G offering to DirecTV Now customers and your original post about how a 16 tuner set top box would eat up the data allowance if the tech installing the dish miss-aimed it? There is no dish in this case, nor is there a set top DVR. The service isn't being offered to DirecTV customers, and there is no reason to do that anyway. They already have satellite equipment to receiver their channels on. Right now AT&T is very happy with that arrangement, so much so they have essentially stopped the roll-out of their IPTV uVerse service. Maybe one day they will move them from satellite to wireless but you are talking decades from now.

      DTV and DTV Now won't be combined anytime soon either. This is due to content licensing issues (otherwise DTV Now would already have things like non owner-operated locals which DTV already has carriage agreements for, or CBS locals period). DTV Now doesn't use DVRs so has no need for a "16 tuner" box and AT&T has no interest in making hardware for it since they can just make apps for existing devices like Apple TV, Roku (coming soon), Fire TV, Android, iOS, Android TV (coming soon) and probably smart TVs in the future. The DVR functionality, when it is rolled out, will be cloud based so no local recordings and no need for local DVR hardware.

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    19. Re:How many seconds by EvilSS · · Score: 1

      For example: 6mb/s? I'll just buy that 30gb Xbox game on disk (and still suffer through a multi-gig day-1 patch). 100mb/s? Digital it is! Yay! no more swapping discs!

      You would download Xbox games on your mobile device? I must admit, I didn't consider that use case.

      Want to stream 4K UHD content? Not with that 6mb/s you aren't. 30mb/s? Go for it!

      I salute you for possessing the visual acuity to fully enjoy UHD video on your phone's screen.

      I can just do the things I do now faster

      And there we are. This is the main reason everybody and their mother moved from dial-up to ISDN to ADSL and on and on to the latest broadband technology. Also the reason most people cite for upgrading to faster computers and to solid state drives.

      Speaking of SSDs, I've never heard of anyone saying, "My new drive is 10X faster than the old one; it needs to be 10X larger so I won't fill it up too fast (not to be confused with the common "cost per gigabyte compared to platters" complaint).

      What, your phone doesn't support a hotspot? Mine does. Your cellphone provider doesn't sell dedicated hotspots? You should really find a new one. And since my cellular data at home is faster than my wired internet (thanks AT&T uverse!) if it wasn't capped I'd sure as hell use it and dump uverse in a heartbeat. Also these questions of speed vs cap are not just a cellular issue. Broadband carriers are rolling out caps at the same time they are also starting to offer higher speeds, particularly cable companies who don't want to have customers using their lines to bypass their TV packages.

      Here is the complete quote of what I said, the important parts are in bold so you don't miss them this time:

      There are plenty of other examples. The problem as the connections get faster, if the cap's don't increase (or, you know, just go the fruck away) in proportion then it's making all that new speed somewhat pointless since I can't really utilize if for new things, I can just do the things I do now faster. And if I already have sufficient bandwidth for doing what I do now, then there is no point to increasing it.

      As internet speeds have increased we've come up with new ways to use that speed. Data caps are restricting those new uses. What's the point of 5G if I can do what I do now on 4G or LTE with no issues? The answer is, for the consumer there isn't one. We do not just want to do what we do now, but faster. We want to do other things that we can't do today. Just like we have with computers. We didn't make faster computers to run our old programs faster and faster. At a certain point the extra speed is irrelevant. If that were the case we would have stopped creating new processors decades ago. We've used those faster computers to develop new software that can take advantage of their increase in performance.

      Comparing bandwidth to caps is a good way to demonstrate how restricting those caps are. What the hell would be the point of a 14 gigabit connection if you have a 5 gigabyte data cap? Hell even with a 1tb cap like AT&T has on their uverse service it's massively more bandwidth than would be useful. Web pages won't load any faster that they would on even a 100mb/s connection. The browser and originating server would become the limiting factors well before even that speed. You can stream all the way up to UHD on every mainstream service that currently offers it, buffer free, at 18mb/s (I've tested this personally on Amazon, Netflix, and VuDu, they all work flawlessly on a 18mbs pipe). Nothing we do today on mobile devices would benefit from such a massive jump in speed. Now take that cap out, or make it more reasonable in proportion to the speed and it opens up all kinds of possibilities.

      As for your last point with the SSD, it's shit and you know it.

      --
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  2. AT&T customers would be... by EzInKy · · Score: 1

    ...better served if AT&T could manage to run its own email servers instead of leaving their customers at the mercy of Yahoo.

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    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    1. Re:AT&T customers would be... by EzInKy · · Score: 1

      Everybody who doesn't want to be dependent on gmail. Email is serious stuff.

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      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
    2. Re:AT&T customers would be... by radiumsoup · · Score: 1

      yeah, it's much better to be dependant on a geographically-based service. Just don't ever move or change ISPs.

      slashdotuser@si.rr.com ... or centurytel.net... or qwest.net...

    3. Re:AT&T customers would be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I've used three different ISPs in the last five years; no way in hell and I'm changing my email address that much. I'm currently on Comcast and would trust my email to North Korea before I used their serves.

    4. Re:AT&T customers would be... by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      If Comcast is anything like my olde Time Warner email, you'd get less spam if your email was in NK, Russia, or China.

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      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  3. LTE by OffaMyLawn · · Score: 2

    I thought the whole point of LTE was Long Term Evolution (says it right there on the tin). 5G seems to be built around millimeter wave, which has some pretty severe distance limitations, meaning it is feasible for networks to deploy this technology in highly dense population areas primarily. What's the point?

    1. Re: LTE by adolf · · Score: 2

      We aren't even using 4g yet.

      The marketing wank in this industry is thick and inscrutable.

      All that I gleaned from TFS was "omg we figured out how multicast works, herp herp!"

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      Kid-proof tablet..
    2. Re: LTE by known_coward_69 · · Score: 1

      maybe in your country. USA has had LTE for years now. even the ultra cheap phones work on LTE

    3. Re:LTE by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      What's the point?

      Targeted marketing.

      The people who have the disposable income to spend on watching TV while walking, sitting, or driving are what we call, "Upwardly mobile."

      They aren't the bullet-dodgers on the South side.

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      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    4. Re: LTE by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      We aren't even using 4g yet.

      LTE is working even on small cities here, on inner-side of São Paulo, Brazil, now (up to some months ago, it only worked on the state capitals and other big cities around it...)

  4. And, Oh Yeah... by EzInKy · · Score: 1

    ...and AT&Ts fix is to go to Yahoo to reset your password. Why the fuck can't AT&T run its own email servers?

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    Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
  5. ATT customer here by rmdingler · · Score: 2
    I have the legacy land line and switched to Directv to catch a sports package, and this has led to a pretty heavy marketing attempt to bundle the other services.

    The temptation being proffered now is the "unlimited" data use for viewing tv on all your devices if you submit to the bundling.

    I am naturally sceptical that these perks will last long beyond an introductory period, as the very best deals for everything are only available to new customers for a limited time.

    --
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    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:ATT customer here by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      Sure, they are typically only for *new* customers. But a phone call and 30-60 min of time after that grace period will likely get you to the retention folks. While you may not get quite the same deal as the new guys, you may get something comparable. I had Qwest back in the day and had their ~50Mb plan for $35 and they wanted to raise it to $70. Comcast had a deal for ~50Mb for $40, and when I called Qwest out on it, they kept me on the $35 plan for another year.

  6. This is great! by CaptSlaq · · Score: 1

    Now, about that rural broadband thing...

  7. Re:Austin? by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 1

    Considering you used the words "hipsters", "cool", and "first", I think you answered your own question.

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    Summation 2
  8. Re:And how much will it cost? by radiumsoup · · Score: 1

    if nobody buys it, they can't charge as much and sustain the service.

    as long as there's competition, prices will moderate and service levels will rise

  9. Re:AT&T doesn't even have 4G yet... WTFATS? by dugancent · · Score: 1

    They called hspda+ 4G, when it's really 3G+. They are all running LTE now, which is real 4G.

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    SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
  10. Re:AT&T doesn't even have 4G yet... WTFATS? by acoustix · · Score: 2

    They called hspda+ 4G, when it's really 3G+. They are all running LTE now, which is real 4G.

    The parent post is referring to the fact that LTE technically isn't 4G. The carriers are bending the truth.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_(telecommunication)

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  11. Re:AT&T doesn't even have 4G yet... WTFATS? by dugancent · · Score: 1

    Huh. I stand corrected.

    --
    SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
  12. 5G? by sconeu · · Score: 1

    Is AT&T also going to hand out 5G phones for free to these test case people?

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    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    1. Re:5G? by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      This has nothing to do with phones. AT&T and VZ are planning to roll out 5G to fixed wireless customers before mobile customers, as an alternative to building fiber to the home.

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    2. Re:5G? by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Ah. Thanks.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  13. Re:AT&T doesn't even have 4G yet... WTFATS? by EvilSS · · Score: 1

    Huh. I stand corrected.

    Yea well do your research next time. Cellular technology branding is serious business!

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  14. Re:Austin? by Shatrat · · Score: 1

    Partly because AT&T has a major broadband engineering center and lab in Austin.

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