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Direct TV fixed wireless Broadband

61K views 584 replies 59 participants last post by  skoolpsyk 
#1 ·
Been waiting on this for a long time, says starting by years end. Anybody got any word on the rollout of this, I am so ready to drop my slooooow satellite internet.

3. So How Fast Will It Be?
The filing echoes what AT&T said back in September - speeds of 15-20Mbps, which is more than sufficient for streaming video and most online applications. However, it's worth noting that this number was given long before the FCC voted to revise its definition of broadband to 25Mbps.

http://consumerist.com/2015/03/03/what-we-know-about-attdirectvs-proposed-wireless-broadband-service/

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/headlines/20140523-a-fast-evolving-technology-helps-att-in-directv-deal.ece
 
#521 ·
Exceptional economics.....

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Editor's Corner-The economics of fixed wireless, from LTE to 5G, and what it means for Verizon

Editor's Corner-The economics of fixed wireless, from LTE to 5G, and what it means for Verizon | FierceWireless

Closer to home, Rise Broadband offers an even clearer look at the economics of LTE-powered fixed wireless services. Specifically, the company's co-founder and chief development officer, Jeff Kohler, said recently that fixed deployments typically cost a fifth to a tenth what it would cost to build a comparable wired service. Rise operates fixed wireless services in rural locations in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and elsewhere in the West. The company's data allotments range from 250 GB per month to 500 GB per month.
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#522 ·
Well sure, obviously it costs much less in rural areas because running 10 miles of wire that goes by a couple dozen houses costs a lot more than adding an antenna to a cell tower that already exists.
 
#523 · (Edited)
True. But look at these numbers. Compare the 10 dollar a home number to the 2.5k that Google Fiber laid out in capx per subscriber. Compelling economics in urban areas (Boston cited blow). It won't be as reliable as fiber, but if you could conceivably pay 20% of current monthly broadband prices for 80% reliability, then you have a gamechanger

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"The key to Starry's technology, which uses beamforming to deliver symmetrical broadband speeds as high as 1 Gbps using millimeter wave spectrum over distances as far as 1.5 kilometers, is cost," wrote the Wall Street analysts at MoffettNathanson in a detailed report on Starry issued in April. "With all-in costs for a base station of perhaps $25K, they have already driven their total cost to 'pass' a home to as low as $10 in a dense city like Boston. Their next target is lowering the costs of their CPE equipment, which is currently more than $1,000, to perhaps $200 per home."

Continued MoffettNathanson: "With costs that low, they could offer competitive broadband speeds for a fraction of the current price of wired broadband."
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#527 ·
I don't see fixed wireless as a solution in urban areas either. Not enough spectrum.

The problem is AT&T and all the big telcos they want to focus on the large urban areas. They will bend over backwards to be the first to bring 100gbps speeds to an urban area. Meanwhile their rural counterparts rot in 26.4kbps dialup speeds.

Fixed wireless (4G frequencies) would work great for sparsely populated rural areas. And while AT&T has released press releases stating their intentions in this area, I'm not really seeing a lot of physical movement with this.

5G at the millimeter wavelength is not going to be an answer for this. The signal just does not go far enough. You would have to build towers 200 feet apart and run fiber to each of those towers for backhaul. That won't work in urban areas and it won't work in rural areas.

AT&T and the big telcos need to address this need for their rural areas or sell off those rural areas to smaller regional telcos that might actually care. And like wise, people living in rural areas, they have to understand that they are never going to reap the full benefits of broadband in an urban area. People living in rural areas will likely never be able to cut the cord and rely solely on streaming services, its part of the cost you pay in living in the rural areas.
 
#528 · (Edited)
He who controls the utility poles is king.

The new small cells are being placed on utility poles and other installed infrastructure, no towers needed

Battle Begins for Small Cells, Smart Cities | Light Reading

Why Utility Poles Are So Important to the Future of the Internet

Google Fiber gains support from Level 3 in utility pole attachment battle in Nashville | FierceTelecom

Google Fiber battles AT&T, Comcast for utility pole access in Silicon Valley | FierceTelecom

5G can go thru rain/foliage at short distances, 1 small cell on a utility pole can reach approx 40 homes reliably in the compact city/suburban environment. With just 1 fiber hookup.

Khan says even without a clear line of sight, and surrounded by lots of foilage, their base station has delivered hundreds of megabits per second to devices 300 to 400 meters away

C Spire and Phazr Complete 5G Trial With Millimeter Waves in Mississippi

Lightower is no longer.
Due to Lightower's network in the largest northeastern metro markets, it will make Crown Castle the company to beat for small cell deployments in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

Industry Voices-Entner: From Dish/Amazon to Crown Castle/Lightower, it's merger mayhem | FierceWireless
 
#529 ·
So, how many small cell utility poles are you going to need to provide access to say a 90 square mile city? Or a 200 square mile city?

At what point does it become unfeasible to run fiber to X number of small cell utility poles and becomes more feasible to just run fiber to the premises in those situations? Why limit yourself to spectrum assets if you're going to be running fiber all over the city to backhaul those small cells?

And in rural areas, who is going to run fiber to a utility pole so that 5 households can get access to the spectrum it will provide? Big telcos have already proven that they aren't going to run fiber into sparsely populated rural areas (which, I'm not saying is the wrong decision). What makes you think they'd do it for 5G small cell antennas on utility poles in rural areas?

I just have a hard time getting excited about 5G on millimeter wavelengths. If they want to run 5G in larger cities like a wider public wifi, I might see that as a possible application. But as a replacement for any type of home broadband connection? I just don't see it.
 
#530 ·
Click to EXPAND
So, how many small cell utility poles are you going to need to provide access to say a 90 square mile city? Or a 200 square mile city?

Millions is the plan, with the IOT being 40 times larger than the human internet, it will require millions of small cells, Tesla to release its affordable electric self driving car this Friday, just think how many internet connections are going to be needed to support the new IOT, human internet connections although many, will seem small compared to the IOT small cells. Take a look at the stock of small cell producers.

At what point does it become unfeasible to run fiber to X number of small cell utility poles and becomes more feasible to just run fiber to the premises in those situations? Why limit yourself to spectrum assets if you're going to be running fiber all over the city to backhaul those small cells?

And in rural areas, who is going to run fiber to a utility pole so that 5 households can get access to the spectrum it will provide? Big telcos have already proven that they aren't going to run fiber into sparsely populated rural areas (which, I'm not saying is the wrong decision). What makes you think they'd do it for 5G small cell antennas on utility poles in rural areas?

With the synergies of the IOT and human internet, small cell locations are going to suprise many.

4G / 4.5G will be used in Rural areas using Cell Towers, no utility poles needed in rural apps.

AT&T plans to use cell towers to bring internet access to thousands in rural South Carolina

I just have a hard time getting excited about 5G on millimeter wavelengths. If they want to run 5G in larger cities like a wider public wifi, I might see that as a possible application. But as a replacement for any type of home broadband connection? I just don't see it.
 
#532 ·
Tennessee gets AT&T Fixed Wireless, AT&T is really lighting a fire with their Fixed wireless rollout.

AT&T offers Fixed Wireless Internet to McMinn & Meigs

2 million wireless hookups coming from Microsoft

Another bid to close the rural digital divide -- GCN

A new $3 dollar TV bundle coming, you can bet somebody is going to do it.

Discovery Interest in Scripps Driven by Visions of $3 TV Bundle

Lookout AT&T, 15 buck TV package being introduced here.

OTT Wars Just Got More Interesting, Xfinity Instant TV Now on Deck - Telecompetitor

Are these subs switching to Internet TV?
The company said nearly half of DirecTV Now customers are coming from competitor pay-TV providers, rather than cannibalizing AT&T's base.
Where is the other half coming from?

DirecTV is proving good for AT&T's wireless business, bad for TV

Interesting numbers

Online TV Is Growing Too Slowly to Stop the Bleeding in Cable

Some important market developments over the past year could also potentially move the needle on FWA viability. First, more spectrum is becoming available, with new bands, carrier aggregation techniques and new capacity becoming available from LAA, CBRS and so on. In the mmWave bands, the wide 200 MHz to 1 GHz channel swaths support, at least in theory, game-changing speed and capacity improvements. There is a gap in mid-band spectrum options-something the FCC is looking at-which could open up new opportunities for FWA in ex-urban type areas.

Industry Voices-Lowenstein's View: The next year is critical for fixed wireless access | FierceWireless
 
#533 ·
That $3 TV bundle is just for Discovery's (and presumably Scripps) channels. If things go the way CBS and Discovery are moving, there will be a lot of $3-$7 packages for a groups of channels, and you can be sure networks will buy channels from each other to try to insure each package has something the typical person wants so you'll have to buy a dozen of them, plus each of the four networks, and you'll be paying as much as today but billing will be a lot more of a pain and exclusives will probably mean a single streaming box doesn't even work for all of them!
 
#534 · (Edited)
I do not think the 100 dollar plus cable bill will be the norm in the future. I am thinking 35 dollars and south will be the norm. With the real, targeted advertising model, no truck rolls, no customer equipment, etc.. People are discovering they do not watch all the junk channels in the monster size cable package. Say, four, 3 dollar packages with 12-15 of your favorite channels, plus all the thousands of free stuff out there, could very well be the norm. Sure, there will be the TV nuts and the wealthy that will subscribe to the old mega everything pack but it will not be the norm. Going to be interesting, we shall see.
Really don't know who will be paying the bills, automation is hitting every sector.
The Hidden (Human) Cost of Automation | Light Reading

Grocery-Stocking Robots Will Soon Take over St. Louis Area Supermarkets - Breitbart
 
#535 ·
Just the four locals cost me over $9/month on my cable bill (Mediacom breaks them out separately and passes through 100% of what they're paying) so good luck if you think you'll be able to get $3 packages with anything but crap channels filled with stuff like Storage Wars and Gold Rush.
 
#536 ·
Frankly, if you live in a metropolitan area, the OTA HD signal is better than the corresponding PayTv one for all major networks.

And unless you are a sports fan, you can do without PayTv.

But if you are a sports fan, expect to continue to weather annual price hikes of 6% or more, per year. ESPN recently announced that as their current carriage agreements lapse, it will be seeking a 6% annual hike per sub, up from today's 5%.

Meanwhile, the TIPS Treasury Market indicator is forecasting an annual inflation rate of 1.8% over the next decade
 
#540 ·
Perfect scenario for AT&T's fixed wireless and DirectTV Now skinny (cheap)pack.

Pay TV loses ground to antenna-only households

But wait, there's more, when the new standard hits there will be more defections to OTA.

The other major feature - called conditional access - will let viewers have access to over-the-top subscriptions such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video through over-the-air 6MHz transmissions rather than having to use their data plans, resulting in a dramatic increase in the capacity to deliver mobile video content over the new few years.

ATSC 3.0 will change watching TV on mobiles
 
#541 ·
I think ATSC 3.0 on mobile is all hype no substance. No phones have a TV tuner built in, not in the US and not for other standards elsewhere like DVB-T or ISDB-T. Why would that change with ATSC 3.0?

The idea of subscription services delivered over ATSC to avoid using cellular data is silly, when people get bigger and bigger buckets of data every year. Especially in a thread about fixed wireless that will feature broadband level data allotments. Using ATSC 3.0 for mobile services to avoid using mobile data solves a problem that existed 5-10 years ago, but not really today and definitely not in a few years when ATSC 3.0 stations actually appear.
 
#544 · (Edited)
No phones have a TV tuner built in, not in the US and not for other standards elsewhere like DVB-T or ISDB-T.
Please stop repeating this false claim. Nearly every phone sold in Japan supports 1seg (the mobile segment of a station's ISDB-T signal), even non-smartphones. (That's actually how most people got information following the earthquake and Tsunami since 1seg is more than just live TV, it can be watched in portrait mode with the video on the top half of the screen and the bottom half of the screen displaying interactive text broadcasted by the station)

DVB-H also got some traction starting in the mid-00s on phones sold in the western european countries that offered a DVB-H service. In DVB-H's case though, it didn't help that in many countries it was treated as a seperate service, and in some countires they were subscription only services similar to the old MediaFLO service we had, and right when it started getting traction, the app explosion happened and they were just offering things people can get for free with apps from the individual networks.

As for not in the US, that's because for ATSC we chose a standard that didn't support in motion reception and still required a large external antenna in most areas outside of the immediate suburbs (so unlike countries where 1seg/ISDB-T and DVB-H are the standard, there was no point in including an ATSC tuner). Even the early standalone battery powered portable ATSC TVs failed because of it (compared to pocket analog TVs which remained popular up until the transition). And when ATSC M/H came around, only very few markets got it, only one or two stations broadcasted it in those markets, and it still required an external antenna. Some mobile chipsets like Qualcomm's Snapdragon series included support where ATSC M/H could be integrated, but since the coverage was only in limited areas, as well as stubborn carriers who rather have you subscribe to a higher data plan to stream the content instead, none of the US carriers included it on the phones manufacturers customized for their bands.

As for claims about not wanting to watch TV on the go, if no one wanted to watch TV on the phone, things like WatchESPN, WatchABC, WatchDisney, Fox Now, Fox Sports Go and provider apps wouldn't be some of the most popular mobile phone apps... (Not to mention the annual complaints when people with AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile find out that they can't watch their in-market NFL games on their phones)

What ATSC 3.0 is proposing is a mobile system similar to what 1seg or ATSC M/H offers. Mobile specific streams using codecs and resolutions that most phones can handle natively, with the possibility of interactive services similar to 1seg that can be used for content like emergency information. (As opposed to our current mobile alert system that just gives a vague text of what the alert is, when it expires and telling you to check local media for details) i.e. during a hurricane, instead of everyone going on the mobile networks to get the latest information, local stations can broadcast interactive radar images, evacuation maps, routes and locations of shelters.
 
#545 · (Edited)
AT&T will not have a monopoly with its fixed wireless and DirecTV Now service, So, So much is happening/changing in the industry. Who knows who will survive. With the promise of much better antenna reception and the new features the new standard could be a net plus for fixed wireless and DirectTV Now.
Local broadcasters want and will get their share with ATSC 3.0, local broadcasting is so important to citizens, Cell phones with tv tuners in 2019/20.
it's unlikely that 3.0 broadcasts will be widespread until later in 2018 and early 2019. And it could take far longer than that before the transition from ATSC 1.0 to ATSC 3.0 is completed.

ATSC 3.0 is not only going to be a cord cutter's dream come true, it's likely to give wireless network providers a taste of added competition.

the signal strength of upcoming ATSC 3.0 broadcast promises to be stronger than today's digital broadcast. Those of us who switched from analog to digital over-air broadcast TV learned quickly that our present digital signal strength is weaker than analog. But the new digital standard will make up for this with the inclusion of an adaptable frequency feature that the ATSC says will specialize in, allowing signals to travel further and to penetrate deeper into buildings and basements within range.

That means broadcast TV promises to be relevant again, even as you travel the subway. In the near future you'll be able to pull out your tablet, run your network TV app and start watching a local sporting event.

ATSC 3.0: Cord Cutter's Dream or Tiered Internet Nightmare?

Free Over-the-Air TV Is Going to Get Better

Sinclair, Nexstar Team on ATSC 3.0 Launch in 97 Markets

ATSC 3.0 chips in the iPhone and other smartphones? Don't hold your breath | FierceCable

"The real competitors these days are not the local newspaper and not iHeartRadio or Entercom - they're Google and Facebook,
"We're playing in the land of the giants."

Inside Sinclair: CEO Nixes Fox News Rival Rumors, Talks Tribune and Big Ambition for Broadcast Biz

DirecTV Now Carries More Than 100 Live Local TV Channels | Multichannel

Television is smack in the midst of a technological rebirth on the order of a Mars mission,

Q&A: Renu Thomas on Disney|ABC's Technology Future

The transition is already underway. Disney/ABC Television is moving its TV channels to a cloud-based virtual master control.

Virtualization Will Turn Broadcasters into Orchestrators

Optimistic Outlook On Multicast's Prospects | TVNewsCheck.com

He did not commit to a vote on the ATSC 3.0 proposal before the end of the year but said that was the goal depending on where the facts led them, as was improving the standard.

Ajit Pai Promises Action on Smaller Spectrum Winners | Broadcasting & Cable
 
#546 ·
Anyone know the patent licensing story on ATSC 3.0? Any hope for getting it into cellular chipsets hinges on it being free or almost free to do so. I recall reading that a decade ago ATSC 1.0 patent licensing costs were $10-$20 per device. ATSC 3.0 needs to be pennies before it would be considered in phones. FM has no traction in phones despite zero patent licensing costs.
 
#549 · (Edited)
They can already encrypt their programming with ATSC 1.0, many Ion stations have a bunch of encrypted streams for the airbox service on their signal. Although the rules state that they have to offer at least one stream in the clear.

There's just no money in it because then you have to establish an infrastructure to handle authorizations and sales, most likely design and distribute your own set top boxes, as well as lower your advertising rates if you're no longer free to air, so it's mostly limited to 3rd party services like Airbox leasing space from other stations to offer existing channels like Showtime and Starz. Outside of Airbox, which is still barely a blip on the radar, most of the other attempts at having a subscription OTA service quickly folded.

Encryption of OTA isn't anything new either, they were able to do it during the analog era with services like SelecTV, ONTV, Preview, WHT, Z Channel and others, but once cable was seen as more than just "Community Antenna TV" and reached the big cities with a wider selection of programming, they too eventually folded. (i.e. while Long Island got cable in the 60s and 70s, and most of Manhattan got it in the 70s as a way to deal with multipath, many portions of the outer boroughs of NYC didn't get cable until the 80s, once that happened WHT quickly folded)
 
#553 ·
Love all this "cord cutter" discussion - what people are suggesting is cutting 1 cord and replacing it with 1 or many more cords. I wonder, and time will tell, how many who leave the cable / sat world come back after a while due to inconvenience of many or too technical solution. The only thing that is really wrong with the current world is cost. In my family people have trouble figuring out how to switch from DTV to Blue Ray player. I'd hate to see what would happen if I added a couple of other sources.
 
#554 ·
I think there are two classes of people who will benefit most from cord cutting:

1. people who have relatively narrow interests
2. people who have a ton of TVs

The former because they could get by with really skinny packages and not care that they don't have sports, cable news, or kids programming for example. The latter because the monthly equipment/TV fees will really add up if you have a dozen TVs whereas putting a set top or even two set tops on each is a lot cheaper in the long run.
 
#555 ·
What is the point of having "a ton" of TVs if one doesn't watch them? Disconnected TV sets (used for gaming, DVD/Blurays, etc) don't count against a traditional subscription so one could trim unused sets and keep a traditional subscription in key locations where subscriptions are needed. But that is cord trimming, not cord cutting.

And going from a traditional subscription to SlingTV, DIRECTV Now or other package services is just cord swapping ... trading off the long commitments for reduced content.

As far as "narrow interests" go, I see a lot of compromise in getting a "skinny" package. For me it would be the easiest way of subscribing to channels I do not watch. I only watch one sport (NASCAR) so I have no need for RSNs. But the channels I do watch require more than one bundle.
 
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