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It's the Beginning of the End of Satellite TV in the US (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: "We've launched our last satellite," John Donovan, CEO of AT&T Communications, said in a meeting with analysts on Nov. 29. The AT&T executive effectively declared the end of the satellite-TV era with that statement. AT&T owns DirecTV, the US's largest satellite company -- and second largest TV provider overall, behind Comcast. DirecTV will continue offering satellite-TV service -- it had nearly 20 million satellite video subscribers as of September, per company filings. But the company will focus on growing its online video business instead, Donovan said.
It has a new set-top box, where people can get the same TV service they'd get with satellite, through an internet-connected box they can install themselves. It expects that box to become a greater share of its new premium-TV service installations in the first half of 2019. It also sells cheaper, TV packages with fewer channels through its DirecTV Now and WatchTV streaming services, which work with many smart TVs and streaming media players like Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices. The practice of getting TV through satellite dishes propped up in backyards and perched on rooftops first took hold in the US in the last 1970s and early 1980s, after TV networks like HBO and Turner Broadcasting System started sending TV signals to cable providers via satellites. People in areas without cable or broadcast TV began putting up their own dishes to receive the TV signals, and that grew into a TV business of its own.
It has a new set-top box, where people can get the same TV service they'd get with satellite, through an internet-connected box they can install themselves. It expects that box to become a greater share of its new premium-TV service installations in the first half of 2019. It also sells cheaper, TV packages with fewer channels through its DirecTV Now and WatchTV streaming services, which work with many smart TVs and streaming media players like Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices. The practice of getting TV through satellite dishes propped up in backyards and perched on rooftops first took hold in the US in the last 1970s and early 1980s, after TV networks like HBO and Turner Broadcasting System started sending TV signals to cable providers via satellites. People in areas without cable or broadcast TV began putting up their own dishes to receive the TV signals, and that grew into a TV business of its own.
Yup. With the ISP's effectively winning the war to do whatever they want...you'll soon be forced to subscribe to TV from your monopoly or suffer consequences.
I really miss when there were consumer protection laws and things in place to prevent bullshit like this from happening. I'd rather pay taxes than pay unregulated extortion rates to a private corporation.
Because at some point her wireless provider will either add a super high data cap or be able to throttle video traffic.
Relying on the internet when the providers are hell-bent on acting like an unregulated monopoly is a problem. People like you just rolling over and accepting it is a problem.
Honestly, I have cable, but only for the internet. There's really nothing on television anymore making me want to sit down for an hour or more to watch.
Though I understood satellite and satellite internet are currently the only way to communicate in very rural areas.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Traditional TV requires a tuner and an antenna and const nothing other than the equipment.
I used to have satellite tv. Now I have an antenna, Netflix and Prime. I'm thinking about dropping the streaming services as I've more or less stoped using them. It will cost nothing to keep my antenna on the roof.
I hate fat people.
nope.
IPTV is multicasted, which is fairly efficient. Even today, Europe makes heavy use of this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I guess I am doomed, we have lousy internet, only one cable carrier available and they won't or can't deliver better than 25 Mbps. We can get a DSL signal but it never gets better than 12-16 Mbps. With me working from the house, the GF watching Amazon and her kid streaming music the net connection is choppy and unreliable. Spectrum cable SUCKS, they advertise starting at 60 Mbps and up to 100 Mbps but no one in the rural area I live in gets better than 25 Mbps.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Rural users tend to have satellite TV in part because no cable or fiber-to-the-home provider serves their address. Streaming video over satellite Internet at $5 per GB is unlikely to prove economic as a substitute.
Sounds great... if you have a wide enough pipe with which to receive.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
What do you get from your antenna that is worth the while? I tried that a couple of years ago, and the only thing I could get were channels with preachers and soaps - plus a boatload of ads. I couldn't care less for preachers and soaps, and I just plain refuse to watch any ads. So, what material are you getting?
Pair it with a DVR if you want something other than soaps in the daytime. Broadcast TV still has some good stuff in the primetime hours.
Single digit megabits per second is all you need for standard-definition video streaming, so long as the monthly cap isn't also oppressive. A decade and a half ago, the warez scene was using DivX (MPEG-4 Part 2 + MP3 in AVI) to transcode a 97-minute movie to fill one 700 MB CD at an average rate of 1 Mbps. Nowadays, WebM (VP9 + Opus in MKV) achieves comparable picture quality at an even lower rate.
On the other hand, you probably won't see acceptable streaming performance with 768 kbps DSL, or 1.5 Mbps DSL with multiple TVs.
I set up an antenna indoors, soon hope to get a slightly larger one outdoors to improve on a couple channels' reception....
But I get all the 3 major networks, and Fox...and local PBS.
Each of those channels have extra content on their .1 .2, .3..etc. channels....PBS is really good for lots of content.
There are a lot of other channels, some in SD, but most HD, that play old reruns of shows from days gone past.
But the HD of the main channels is really about the best you can get quality wise, as you don't deal with the compression from someone sending it over a wire.
I paired the antenna with the Tivo Roamio OTA they had out, that came with lifetime guide service baked in...I think you can still get a few left on their website if you search refurbs or specials, as that it appears they now have a new OTA option that costs extra to have the lifetime guide service included.
I have that and the TIvo minis's throughout the house so I can watch that content anywhere I have a TV. I also have Amazon Fire TV units (not the usb drives) on each TV, and I run Netflix, and PS VUE to get my "cable channels"...basically covers everything I used to watch while on cable. PS VUE also had DVR capability, so I can pretty much watch anything I want any time.
But the OTA stuff is worthwhile.....
An antenna doesn't cost that much, and most TVs have digital tuners in them...do a little research on what's available in your area, get the appropriate antenna and hook to your tv just to see what's out there.
It's better than it used to be.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
100mbps? Divide that by 12 in my area and those are the speeds, and I don't even live out in the boonies.
StarLink will mean they can get all the streaming they want.
Until SpaceX launches Starlink service, it's vapor. Another Elon Musk venture recently canceled a planned tunnel dig after discovering that the locals demanded a work-to-rule on the environmental impact assessment.
i bought their basic package, but what they dont tell you is that peppered throughout the channel line up is every other channel is 24/7 infomertals peddling crap, and channel surfing is slow so when you switch a channel you have to wait a few seconds for each channel to display on the TV, i promptly canceled after a very short time, i did not pay them to load my TV with all those spammy infomertals,
i just dont watch TV anymore, its just not worth the annoyances to watch
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Guess they are just screwed. I know you city dwellers that never leave the city, don't get why people live in "flyover country", but there are a TON of potential customers that will be out of all television. Most live too far away for over the air, now that all the signals are digital and their power to reach is very limited. I do a lot of traveling in the midwest. Satellite dishes are EVERYWHERE. Someone will come along to take over that market.
If anything it's SpaceX that should be concerned that their potential subscriber base is dwindling, at least in the US.
I don't think you understand that dearth of broadband availability in the U.S. I'd estimate that at least half of the U.S. (by population) has either no broadband at all, or has broadband of little utility. Even if Starlink were limited to the U.S., the potential market is HUGE.
Divide by 8 and change for me. AT&T keeps trying to upsell me to 18 megabit service, and I keep explaining to them that they're not even able to provide the 12 megabit service I already am paying for.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
IPTV is multicasted
Only if your ISP is also your IPTV provider.
Multicast on the public Internet isn't a thing.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Sorry I wasn't clear that that was my point: this is a product for people who have broadband, all of whom already have internet-connected devices. AT&T's box does nothing for such people *and* does nothing for people without broadband (a group AT&T is plainly abandoning).
nope. IPTV is multicasted, which is fairly efficient. Even today, Europe makes heavy use of this.
Oh don't worry, I'm sure AT&T will find a way to fuck it up. I'm sure they'll force you to rent some shitty proprietary box from them and limit any support they provide to the absolute minimum required by law, sorry I mean whatever they can get away with through forced arbitration. Want to use your own box? Hahaha not with AT&T, peasant!
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
Spread all those Gbps over the whole countryside, and how many kbps will each subscriber end up with?
The same way HughesNet already does it.
In other words, harsh monthly caps for all bytes sent or received outside a window from 01:00 through 04:59 local time.
What do you get from your antenna that is worth the while?
Well let's see. For me it's: local news, some sporting events, and re-runs of shows I enjoy (Frasier, That '70s Show, etc). Paired with a MythTV backend and several Raspberry Pi front-ends running Kodi as the PVR front-end, it's a really enjoyable setup for free, over-the-air content.
See if you can get someone to come out and examine the actual phone pole. That was happening to me and they found out the Time Warner guy sabotaged the pole and clamped the entire neighborhood to 12 megabit shared.
IIRC, AT&T was strangling Uverse so that they could force more people onto Direct TV thereby freeing bandwith. Now they are doing a 180? Strange!
If you're on a 2 Mbps connection, and it chokes loading commercials, report the fact that it chokes loading commercials to your video provider. If you did, what was the reply?