AT&T To Squeeze Four HD Streams Into U-verse TV Homes [telecom]

Sep 19, 2010 2 Replies

AT&T To Squeeze Four HD Streams Into U-verse TV Homes Telco's U-verse Services on Track to Generate $4 Billion in 2010



By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 9/16/2010 4:29:31 PM



AT&T will let U-verse TV customers access up to four high-definition channels simultaneously by the end of the year, thanks to a combination of DSL upgrades and improvements in MPEG-4 compression.



Until now, AT&T has allowed customers of the IPTV service to access a maximum of three HD channels at once, because of bandwidth constraints.



...



formatting link



***** Moderator's Note *****

OK, so why can't they lower their rates for phone calls?



Bill Horne Moderator



Is this compression lossless?

If not, does this mean that AT&T's future 4-channel compression scheme will be even more lossy than its current 3-channel scheme?

On Sun, 19 Sep 2010 00:45:11 -0400, after what Monty Solomon wrote, Moderator added:

They *can*, of course. But they don't want to. And you can bet that, if they were *forced* to, they'd find a way to ensure that you spend enough more time on each phone call than before the rate reduction to assure them of greater income after than before (you know, voice drop-outs, brief bursts of line noise, or the like, requiring callers to repeat what they've just said, often enough to extend the duration of the call by ... well, you get my drift).

Cheers, -- tlvp

-- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required