AT&T To Offer TV Over Phone Lines

[BJ_M]

"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.'"


https://uverse1.att.com/launchAMSS.do

[lordsmurf]

There is a lot of controversy over this right now, in some areas. Between the various groups (including AT&T themselves), I have no idea what the good and bad points are to this.

[edDV]

U-Verse is a form of IPTV using the multicast model. Instead of tuning from channels on cable coax, the receiver requests packets for the channel desired. If all on the subnet request the same stream, data loading is low. If all request different streams the subnet may overload.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-Verse

[freebird73717]

My phone provider offers this already. Local company not affiliated with att. Picture is on par with sattelite tv. Only times there are any macroblock problems is when I am downloading large files and using a lot of bandwith while surfing the net.

[buttzilla]

verizon also has that planned. That why their installing fiber optic in a lot of places here in philadelphia to replace the old phone lines

[ironape2]

I have this service currently and have no typical Satelite TV issues (macroblock etc etc) The service uses VDSL2 to get you TV/Internet/Voip service. Everything comes into a Residential Gateway through a 47MB connection. Out of that bandwith 6mb are used for internet and the rest is dedicated to your TVs. Currently you have only 4 video streams for your use which means that you can be watching 4 different programs on 4 TV's or watching 2 different programs and recording 2 different programs. How you use the different streams is up to you. In the near future they are going to up the streams to 8 to allow a household with 4 TV's to watch them as well as record 4 at the same time or a 2 TV household to watch 2 TV's and record up to 6 programs. The HD channels are not as nice as they could be and your currently limited to watching only one HD stream at a time. This is changing very soon when they upgrade the total bandwith of the service.

All in all I love that I can get 400+ channels to include 45+ HD channels and 6/1 internet all for 129 a month. I have had my service since april and havent had a since problem with it since it was installed. The channels change fast, the picture quality is nice and I love all the online stuff you get with the service.

[slacker]

All I can say is WOW, and it's about time someone came along and challenged the COMCAST monopoly in my locale. $129 is a little more than 1/2 of what I'm paying now for the comparable lineup with COMCAST.

[mike_atomicsitup_com]

I work for a telecom provider that currently provides this type service over copper as well as on a fiber network similar to Verizon's (however, it is a tad more advanced). While it sounds good, the limited area in which this can be rolled out on the copper areas - you thought getting DSL from AT&T was hard, this causes you be even closer to the switch unless they rolled fiber to the RT's in your 'hood. And the troubles with inground plant that this product generally illustrates will prevent a good number of subscribers from actually being able to get it. Even less will actually want to keep it after they do sign up for it - we had about 90% cancellation rate within 45 days of customer getting this service.

[SingSing]

All I can say is WOW, and it's about time someone came along and challenged the COMCAST monopoly in my locale. $129 is a little more than 1/2 of what I'm paying now for the comparable lineup with COMCAST.

Why can't you go 'dish' ?

[BJ_M]

dish internet has HUGE delay -- a lot of things just time out