AT&T, Verizon Highlight Future TV Features Hope that convergence can help them beat cable... Verizon and AT&T believe they can lure users away from cable if they offer features not seen on cable systems. Their primary interest is in convergence, or offering services that are usable via cell phone, PC and living room set-top. Cable operators know this could be a weak spot for them, and created their Sprint Pivot partnership as a pre-emptive strike. Verizon recently previewed a number of up-and-coming features for FiOSTV, which include instant messaging across devices (phone to DVR), gaming across devices and smarter home media networks: FiOS is planning a customer premises management system, where the home router keeps track of all devices including WiFi-enabled cameras. When taking a picture with such a camera, the router immediately recognizes it and sends it to any device in the home the user wants: the TV, mobile phone, PC, etc. The devices are all managed in accordance with the TR-069 standard. The idea can be extended to devices such as Webcams, thermometers, and lighting fixtures that can be controlled from anywhere using a mobile phone. AT&T too has been showing off their upcoming U-Verse features, including a whole-home DVR, new photo sharing services and integrated VoIP. AT&T dubs their convergence strategy their "three screen initiative."
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 |  |  en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: convergence? Yup... in the words of many other price hikes...
its the 'increased value of the service'.
I.e. We bundle more in (which doesn't cost a whole lot more to provide) so that we can charge more.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
| |  r81984Fair and BalancedPremium
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX | Best Mad TV skit ever. | |
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 ronpinImagine Reality
join:2002-12-06
Nirvana
1 edit | "Timeshift" *and* "placeshift" = "usershift" I use a slingbox on my Tivo. Do that -- and they will come.
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50% of Americans vote - 30% are repugs -- do the math. | |
| b10010011Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
Bellingham, WA Reviews:
 ·Comcast Formerl..
1 edit | Want to lure me away from cable? First you need to service my area!
Then...
Offer the same or better channel line up for a lower monthly fee than cable.
Offer the same or higher speed broadband for lower monthly fee than cable.
I mean a lower monthly fee, not some three month teaser rate. | |
| | | | Re: Want to lure me away from cable? Comcast raising rates after the holidays each year isn't enough to hook people?  | |
| | | b10010011Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
Bellingham, WA Reviews:
·Comcast Formerl..
| Re: Want to lure me away from cable? It's not like I have any choice anyway besides satellite, and they do not have my locals in HD so they do not count.
Locals (well I should say the broadcast networks) in HD is the only real reason I have cable, since they are all too far away and behind to many hills to receive them OTA.
As for broadband, in my area cable is still has the best bandwidth/price ratio compared to DSL, satellite, and Clearwire.
All other things aside I base most of my buying decisions on price/performance ratio, not extra features I will never used like photo sharing, voip, and whatever other nonsense they are coming up with... | |
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| fiberguyMy views are my own.Premium
join:2005-05-20
kudos:3 | I personally would like to see... ... Phone work on enhancing their phone offerings first over video.. and cable enhancing their video offering over phone first.
AT&T Broadband sent a loud message through the country when they bought into cable TV. They came in, ignored the core product, pushed, telephone services, and in one system alone in Minnesota, they lost 1/3 of the video base while they chased phone services.
Verizon is offering a nice video service, I won't dismiss that at all. But I don't get why companies like AT&T and Verizon and even Qwest, are willing to lose their core business to a competing product that they may or may not make it in.
I think cable proved that services like Pivot didn't work well. It would be "neat" to set a DVR program through a cell phone, but I don't think it's high on priority right now. I think HD service, and better picture quality IS. Whole home DVR is... but being able to share pictures through the house? and other convergence.. while I think it will have it's place in the future, I don't see why they are running towards it.
Consumers want to see lower bills. All these services they are pushing are going to take $10 and $15 hits to the consumer which is going to be a hard sell. They are further trying to bundle consumers and putting them into contracts which I also think is a bad move. Why? Simple... no one really is trusting their cable, phone, or satellite providers anywhere near where they should be. The confidence of the consumer is way too low to use forced, contract bundling as the tool to retain.
These companies are quick to throw a new product out and never work to perfect it or expand it. They half ass everything and jump on something else just to say "we have X now".. it's clear the DVR needs improvement, while Verizon DID do an excellent job on it. Cable still needs to continue working to improve the video signal in many areas.. offer more HD services... better set top options and so on. Telephone needs to work harder to separate the phone from the home like cable and other voip providers are doing.
I dunno.. it just seems to me that before they jump ahead, they should perfect the services they have now.. win over the hearts from the consumer before the pedal new crap that they will soon find wasn't worth the time, effort, and money.
I left out HSI for a reason - it's a no brainer.
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-serving, the lazy, and I’m told it’s a woman’s prerogative..." | |
| | | Has Verizon "converged"... their billing systems yet? I'd just like to see accurate bills for those who have multiple products (FiOS & FiOS-TV specifically).
Dream on? | |
| | | | Re: Has Verizon "converged"... Although you're anon....I agree! I just got hit with a $500 Verizon bill because some twit didn't enter the "0" after the 28 but before the decimal. Now I get a late fee and pay the balance (less $28.51) for last bill. And just try calling them when I get home after 7pm!
For a phone company that has to make sure its phone, network, and now TV are on 24/7, they sure aren't around in the billing department 24/7. 
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Weeeeeeee! | |
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| | Screw Verizon With all the billing and customer service nightmares I wouldn't sign up if it were FREE!
The cable in the street is all going bad so every year the line gets crossed and I have to call verizon to swap out the pair. ....But they ran out pairs on my street! So instead of fixing their own infrastructure,They told me I had to wait for a "Clean Pair".
Verizon and ATT can FUCK off and ROTT in HELL! | |
| | | Perhaps ATT should spend more time figuring out a good way of deploying 3-4 HD feeds.... | |
|  Noah VailSon made my AvatarPremium
join:2004-12-10
Lorton, VA
kudos:2
·Bright House
| Give us what we want, what we really really want. Brave New Ground.
It's Risque, It's Taboo..
It's so cutting edge that cableco execs. scream in their sleep at the mere thought of it.
It's the red hot desire of wayward consumers, hellbent on the path of personal destruction...
It's anarchy, It's digital chaos, It's the end of all that is good and holy in cable kingdom.
It would incur the wrath of Disney,
the rampant indignation of the Arts Channel.
It can be yours, if you but demand it.
It's
a la carte programming
IT'S DOCSIS DAMNATION BROUGHT DOWN UPON ALL OUR HEADS!!
but it's what we want, what we really really want.....
NV
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My children used to Speak in Tongues. But after years of Speech Therapy, English is their First Language! | |
| elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | A Primer on How-To "Beat Cable":Offer Ala Carte Programming! Duh.
Verizon and AT&T put on a huge campaign in California to get a statewide license for their cable-tv-via fiber-monopoly. They promised "value". They hosted many state legislators, most better known for speaking in foreign tongues and dipping their noodle in someone other than their wives, but I digress...
Just as soon as they got their bill passed, they changed their tune - "No, we will not compete on price, but service." Now, anyone who bothered to LOOK at Verizon's pricing in other states would have known this, but our legislators aren't much on reading - too much golf to play.
I'll grant you this: I much more trust Verizon to run a quality shop, than I do Adelphia, Comcast, Time-Warner, or any of the other cable giants. AT&T (SBC) is another matter. They're worse than any cable company... I always wished Ed Whitacre could share a cell with John Rigas.
Plenty of folks will gladly load up on $150/month worth of "triple play" stuff, just as that infamous Time-Warner VP predicted back in 1999(?), but the many of us simply aren't wanting to be bundled. We want to be able to shop, individually, for services. And we want to buy the channels we watch, not have to subsidize ESPN (sorry, guys, not sports-gene here), Oxygen/Lifetime, or Univision for everyone else.
An ala-carte model might not be dirt-cheap. It might have a "basic transport" charge of $15-20, and "per-channel" charge of $.50-$3.00 (varying with perceived value of the channel), and one could still have "channel bundles" (pick any 10 for $10, etc). But please, stop with the tiers, which are designed SPECIFICALLY to create conflict within any household, and raise the monthly minimum spent.
And after that, lets have some honesty in pricing: No more 13-odd niggling line-items at the bottom of the bill such as "Not a Government Charge but we imply that anyway". These heavyweights can take up the tax issue with the appropriate entities, not cast it off on the poor consumer. | |
| | | | AT&T Wake up, the future is not TV AT&T, Verizon and others should deploy fiber optic based IP service of 155 MHz or more bidirectionally to everyone. The future is peer to peer Internet services that no one can imagine today. Deploying fiber to everyone will enable the dreams hinted at by the dot com industry to materialize. The more services that develop, the more bandwidth people will demand and more money the communication giants can earn. Paying $100.0 a month to watch formally free over the air television with advertisements and downloading movies I can rent for $2.00 at the grocery store is NOT the future. | |
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And what is the TR-069 standard?
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....TV ..Nahhhh ..they mess up enough just with phones ! Can't deal with "back-hoe fade" with Telcos. Cable was bad enough !!