AT&T Is Phasing Out the U-Verse Video, Broadband Brand

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.

Just dumped our U-Verse service...

[JargonScott]

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."

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[jetkust]

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.

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[amxcoder]

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

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[FrankHaynes]

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.

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[amxcoder]

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 r

How will that save bandwidth?

[omnichad]

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.

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[Megane]

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, pro

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[FrankHaynes]

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.

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[rtb61]

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

Good

[Curunir_wolf]

Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish!

For "simplicity" read

[fredrated]

"increased profits".

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[Anonymous Coward]

As a stockholder, count me in on that one.

No way in Hell!

[methano]

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.

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[sabbede]

Is there an RFC for IP via Morse code?

I wish

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

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

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[Megane]

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.

They should do a dual system main sat backup / oth

[Joe_Dragon]

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.

No reason to celebrate for me

[Bruinwar]

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.

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[gymbrown]

If you have an area under your exclusive control (yard or balcony), you can install a dish https://www.fcc.gov/media/over... [fcc.gov]. 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 m

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[Bruinwar]

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

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[Megane]

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

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[Bruinwar]

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

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[evilviper]

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... [fcc.gov]

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[evilviper]

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... [amazon.com]

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

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

Too bad my parents don't have direct line of sight

[jbarr]

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.

Just in time

[tylersoze]

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

Note to ATT:

[Narcocide]

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.)

Streaming DirecTV

[Archfeld]

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.