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AT&T Plans to Gift Free Apple TV to DirecTV Now Subscribers Who Commit to 3+ Months of Service
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I'm in for that as long as its a new model Apple TV. Will make a nice Christmas gift for my parents.
I'll take it. I was wanting to try out this service anyway. Not sure what I'll do with an extra Apple TV, but it might be a good Christmas present for someone, lol. Weird that this doesn't have a firm launch date yet, considering it's already November and it's supposed to launch in late 2016.
Killing off UVerse TV only, not the internet service. In 10 years or so, AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc. will be primarily ISP's, but will offer additional services (like DirecTV Now, IP home phone, etc.) on top of your internet service. The fiber that AT&T is finally deciding to roll out to homes, and has already rolled out to the neighborhood, will support faster internet speeds, allowing for additional services. I actually think it will be closer to 5 years, but it will take time to get all of the traditional cable subscribers converted to an online television service.
I have been reading about ATSC 3.0 over the last few months and like what I'm reading. ATSC 3.0 also involves the broadcast stations broadcast to mobile devices such as iPads and iPhones and others. Sometime later there will be ATSC 3.0 tuners in the iPads, iPhones, and other devices. Late next year is when ATSC 3.0 should start commercial broadcasting.A lot of this all seems moot with ATSC 3.0! *rolls eyes*
Spectrum is $40/mo for 12 months, then I believe it too is $70/mo. And that's for 100 down and a rather slow 5 up (maybe 10). For actual high speed internet (300 down and 20 up), Spectrum charges a $200 setup fee and like $90 a month (honestly can't remember the monthly cost now; they won't show it on their website, and it took a 30 minute phone call to learn of this plan, and all I remember now was the outrageous setup fee and a monthly near or just over $100).
The commercials are the same as you have on any program. You stream a channel. I really don't see how they could do anything else. No network is going to let them insert their commercials over their own. And live tv wouldn't be live if you had the channel commercial AND Directv stuck theirs in too.
Charter Spectrum? I wouldn't wish their internet service on my worst enemy. They are about as ass-backwards of an ISP as you can possibly be in 2016. Why? They think it's perfectly logical to cap upstream throughput at 5 Mbps when the downstream is provisioned at 100 Mbps. On business accounts, they cap upstream at 7 Mbps (ooooh...thanks for the extra 2 megabits, Charter!) So completely asinine. They either don't understand -- or don't care to acknowledge -- that in this day and age of putting things in the cloud, upstream throughput is just as important as downstream throughput.
One of the major drawbacks of them choosing to cap their upstream throughput at either 5 Mbps or 7 Mbps is that if you're trying to upload a ton of data to the cloud and have an AirPort Extreme or Express router (which doesn't have QoS), the upstream channel gets completely saturated to the point that no other device on your network is able to send out anything -- even something as simple as a DNS lookup request, thus rendering your connection completely unusable for anything except the upload to the cloud. Have VoIP? Kiss your phone service goodbye while an upload is in progress.
If my family ever moves, one of my requirements is that the house be in a neighborhood that has AT&T fiber installed. If the neighborhood only has Charter service, it is a no go for me. I am that passionate about staying away from Charter. Charter wanted me to pay $120/month for 100 Mbps down/5 Mbps up last year. That's how much they charge if you only want internet service from them as soon as the promo rate expires. As soon as AT&T fiber was available in our neighborhood last year, I jumped on it and we now have 1 Gbps up and down and pay $70/month. Just for the fiber internet -- no bundle. Yeah, $50 less per month for 10x more downstream bandwidth and 200x more upstream bandwidth! Charter can kiss my ass!!
They will likely require you to prepay for 3 months, thereby offsetting their cost of the Apple TV box. No "commitment", but you will pay $105 upfront, get the Apple TV device, and 3 months of service.
the will be a great deal for me. This is exactly what I've been looking for (my particular situation)
This is not regular DirecTV service, which has a 24 month commitment, it's a new service called 'DirecTV NOW' which you can get WITHOUT a satellite dish installed on your house.
You can just use an app and any internet provider you have.
This is the same as Slingtv. I paid 3 months up front. Only difference is the Apple TV was discounted, not free.
I will sign up and then decide on sling or this.
There are no extra ads - it's just streaming the same TV channels DirecTV already has. Just a limited set right now until they get all the contracts sorted out.
The 'catch' here is that DirecTV is no longer subsidizing Satellite Dishes, Receivers, DVRs, or paying to have workers install cables through your house. And the cost of the service infrastructure to get this to your house - YOU are paying for with YOUR internet.
TV prices in themselves will go down, because half the product is gone - the delivery procedure is not being paid for by them anymore, it's now on YOU to pay for your internet/cell phone separately.
1996 - Tv $100, Internet $0
2016 - Tv $35, Internet $80
We think we're paying less, but we're not.
I wonder if they will allow us to get rid of our $200 service when the new $35 (or whatever it was) service offers everything we watch. If you can add addition channels at like $4.99 each or so that would be amazing as well. I really hope they let us out of the current service to switch because my contract just renewed in July.
Silly me! This is great, this is a cheap way to get my new AppleTV. Thanks for clarification!