Yesterday, AT&T announced it will stop selling DirecTV satellite service in the first quarter of 2008, triggering speculation it may enter an exclusive partnership with satellite television company EchoStar later next year. [Reuters]
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I would lean toward purchase of... AT&T rarely enters any exclusive (when it affects them) deal. Something big is going on. Do a little digging on AT&T's site and you'll see what I mean.
Yep - it looks as if AT&T is back to owning the world - maybe the universe. As I recall - Echostar is really now Dish Network. So - do you think that next year maybe with the weight of AT&T behind them that the baseball season will be available on Dish and not exclusively on Direct ? The internet feed wasn't all that great this year!
I don't understand why AT&T would invest billions in building out their "u-verse" television service and then turn around and purchase a satellite television company that does the same thing.
Echostar is the name of the company; Dish Network is the name of the product.
@ErnieMcCracken: AT&T has got guts, but I doubt they have the stones to make a deal like that. If they do, you can guess how fast I'll be returning my Satellite receivers.
@bravo: Perhaps because their u-verse product SUCKS? The error they made is that they're trying to provide u-verse via high-performance DSL rather than running fiber to the home. They're stuck in a copper world and are severely limited by it.
@GearheadGeek: Do you have any actual experience with U-Verse? I am a U-Verse customer and am very happy with it, especially the savings over Comcast.
They sell their own TV service now and don't want any competition with it. That's my guess.
I refuse to use u-verse because it doesn't use cablecard so my tivo can't "see" the signal.
@dennbruce: My experience with u-verse is admittedly second hand... but in San Antonio, TX (AT&T's home market!) I don't know anyone who's a happy customer, they've backed WAY off on selling the product, and the basic technology is flawed. They have Windows servers out in non-air-conditioned wiring cabinets in the field, which is not a good idea in central Texas. Unless something's changed very recently in San Antonio, you can only watch one HD channel PER HOUSEHOLD, so even if you have multiple HD boxes, you can only watch one HD channel at a time due to bandwidth limitations.
Maybe they're less bad than Comcast in your market, but they aren't anywhere NEAR the quality of Time Warner in San Antonio.
"exclusive partnership" or "purchase of"?