# Verizon and DirecTV in a LTE pilot?



## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

From http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Testing-Fixed-Wireless-With-DirecTV-110646



> Users in our Verizon forum have posted some very interesting pictures of a Verizon beta test being conducted in Pennsylvania. While initially it appeared that this was simply a beta test for Verizon's upcoming LTE services (to be launched in 30 markets by year's end), upon closer inspection this may be something else entirely.
> 
> ...
> 
> From what my friend told me I guess Directv and Verizon teamed up for this new service. A directv installer actually came out and installed everything.


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## NewView (Jan 15, 2007)

I would be interested in this if the price was right and, as one poster said in the DSLR thread said, if the caps were realistic. I use DirecTV VOD quite a bit, and Verizon historically saddles their subscribers with ridiculously low caps, which would render DirecTV VOD useless.

Oh, by the way . . . where can I sign up for the beta test? :grin:


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## putty469 (Jun 5, 2007)

Fascinating, but I hope they gave thought to caps. Streaming any DoD content is going to max a low cap quickly. I think there would have to be some sort of exclusion of D* services and make the cap apply to other Internet sites.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

I'm interested in LTE overall, but was mostly in terms of cell phones and getting good building penetration. Didn't think about areas like this.

From what I understand, the first cities are supposed to be the 30 NFL cities.


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## skatingrocker17 (Jun 24, 2010)

dpeters11 said:


> I'm interested in LTE overall, but was mostly in terms of cell phones and getting good building penetration. Didn't think about areas like this.
> 
> From what I understand, the first cities are supposed to be the 30 NFL cities.


Disappointing, the closest NFL city is Detroit.


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## billsharpe (Jan 25, 2007)

NewView said:


> I would be interested in this if the price was right and, as one poster said in the DSLR thread said, if the caps were realistic. I use DirecTV VOD quite a bit, and *Verizon historically saddles their subscribers with ridiculously low caps,* which would render DirecTV VOD useless.
> 
> Oh, by the way . . . where can I sign up for the beta test? :grin:


Verizon FiOS Internet doesn't have caps AFAIK. I've been using DirecTV VOD for several years without any problems.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

billsharpe said:


> Verizon FiOS Internet doesn't have caps AFAIK. I've been using DirecTV VOD for several years without any problems.


But LTE is a cellular type connection, and they generally have a 5gb cap.


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## Miller (Jul 22, 2005)

dpeters11 said:


> But LTE is a cellular type connection, and they generally have a 5gb cap.


Clear wire does not currently have caps but they seem to be throttling people.


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## Herdfan (Mar 18, 2006)

An update: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-DirecTV-Testing-LTEBased-Home-Broadband-111773


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## TheRatPatrol (Oct 1, 2003)

Herdfan said:


> An update: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-DirecTV-Testing-LTEBased-Home-Broadband-111773


I wonder how much direct line of site you have to have for that though?


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## dstout (Jul 19, 2005)

isn't this a big deal? If it has decent cap?


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

Herdfan said:


> An update: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-DirecTV-Testing-LTEBased-Home-Broadband-111773


Have lots of relatives and friends in Vermont that really could use this.


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## Marvin (Sep 14, 2003)

dstout said:


> isn't this a big deal? If it has decent cap?


I think I read that the initial cap on Verizon's LTE is 10 GB for $80 a month with $10 per GB overage costs. The dumb thing is that at the LTE speeds provided (5-12 Mbps), you can burn through 5 GB in less than a day of decent use.

So unless they cut a deal with directv to offer up a package deal without a cap for Directv customers then its not going to get off the ground. People in the initial LTE launch cities will have much cheaper uncapped options to use as a broadband connection for their directv box. Its rural customers like me who would benefit from this but LTE and similar 4G cell tech is still at least 3-4 years away from being deployed into a substantial number of rural areas.


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

Verizon plans to have their wireless system converted to LTE by end of 2014

FiOS Is Ok, But LTE Is Verizon's Real Power Play
Sell off unwanted networks and union workers, then win users back with LTE


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## RACJ2 (Aug 2, 2008)

I just read that the full coverage with LTE will be completed by 2013 [link]. It doesn't sound like its replacing their current CMDA technology though, since LTE only handles data right now. They said that CMDA will be upgraded to simultaneously handle data and voice, so it will be around for another decade [link].


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Very interesting....wonder what AT&T thinks about all this....after the two companies having many years of "partner" marketing relationships...


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> Very interesting....wonder what AT&T thinks about all this....after the two companies having many years of "partner" marketing relationships...


DirecTV has partnered with Verizon too. Since both of them have competing TV services, I doubt there is too much love anywhere in that triangle.


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## dustman81 (Dec 5, 2010)

Jeremy W said:


> DirecTV has partnered with Verizon too. Since both of them have competing TV services, I doubt there is too much love anywhere in that triangle.


DirecTV and AT&T have competing TV services as well as AT&T offers U-Verse.


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## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

dustman81 said:


> DirecTV and AT&T have competing TV services as well as AT&T offers U-Verse.


That's why I said "both of them" meaning AT&T and Verizon.


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## tamano (Mar 25, 2011)

Now that Verizon begun rolling out LTE, does anyone know what the status is of this Verizon/DirecTV antenna? Just wondering if I can expect to see this as a broadband alternative and if anyone has heard of this being rolled out anywhere? Thanks.


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

tamano said:


> Now that Verizon begun rolling out LTE, does anyone know what the status is of this Verizon/DirecTV antenna? Just wondering if I can expect to see this as a broadband alternative and if anyone has heard of this being rolled out anywhere? Thanks.


They haven't even started talking about it on the investor calls so I would say we're still a ways off. Also LTE is very limited right now so I wouldn't expect anything until LTE has a much larger area of coverage probably a year or so away if I had to guess.


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

Shades228 said:


> They haven't even started talking about it on the investor calls so I would say we're still a ways off. Also LTE is very limited right now so I wouldn't expect anything until LTE has a much larger area of coverage probably a year or so away if I had to guess.


Doesn't LTE require a 40' pole every quarter mile in all directions?


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## tritch (Jan 15, 2008)

Drucifer said:


> Doesn't LTE require a 40' pole every quarter mile in all directions?


No. Less LTE towers are needed than for cell phones towers. The 700Mhz band that Verizon and AT&T spent billions on at the FCC auction has a much better signal propagation and building structure penetration as opposed to the voice cell band frequency at 1.9Ghz. Better reliability and less cost.....


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

tritch said:


> No. Less LTE towers are needed than for cell phones towers. The 700Mhz band that Verizon and AT&T spent billions on at the FCC auction has a much better signal propagation and building structure penetration as opposed to the voice cell band frequency at 1.9Ghz. Better reliability and less cost.....


Actually, the 700Mhz propagation is much better than the 1900 Mhz as you pointed out.

But Verizon has considerable voice and data spectrum at 850 Mhz which is comparable to 700 Mhz.

Its Sprint that doesn't have 850 Mhz and suffers with poorer signal quality across the US.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

I wonder if we won;t see some sort of LTE upload, and sat/lte download combination... That would be big for both companies. Remember, Directv has a huge amount of bandwidth they just got a year or two ago that they aren't even using yet.


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## tamano (Mar 25, 2011)

So has anyone actually seen the Verizon antenna? Wondering what would be inside that and how/ if it could support networking with other devices or tvs in the home.


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

tamano said:


> So has anyone actually seen the Verizon antenna? Wondering what would be inside that and how/ if it could support networking with other devices or tvs in the home.


I'd be willing to say that the first rule of the antenna is there is no antenna right now.


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## Christopher Gould (Jan 14, 2007)

Shades228 said:


> I'd be willing to say that the first rule of the antenna is there is no antenna right now.


i swear someone had a pic and it was right below a D* dish
yes its on the link in the first post


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

Christopher Gould said:


> i swear someone had a pic and it was right below a D* dish
> yes its on the link in the first post


Step 1: Go watch fight club
Step 2: Understand that when that picture was put out that even LTE was not "active" anywhere.

At this point even if someone had that information they wouldn't be able to talk about it.


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## RACJ2 (Aug 2, 2008)

Nothing really new on the LTE subject, but there was recent talk about it at the Morgan Stanley Media & Telecommunications conference in San Francisco in early March [link].


> "We look forward to working with all of our telco partners as LTE rolls out to see whether the concept would make sense," says White. Of course by "all telco partners" White means Verizon, and by waiting to see if the concept "makes sense," he means DirecTV is waiting to get results from their ongoing Verizon LTE tests in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. We're waiting to see exactly what kind of pricing and caps the two companies will impose on a fixed LTE implementation DirecTV's going to want to use to help consumers stream on demand broadband video.


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## dstout (Jul 19, 2005)

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Will-Aim-Fixed-LTE-At-Discarded-DSL-Users-113501


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

> Verizon Communications will terminate trials of its Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless broadband technology with satellite giant DirecTV, a direct casualty of the telco's landmark spectrum deal with a trio of cable operators, according to Communications Daily.
> Verizon began trialing LTE service with DirecTV in late 2010, attaching a "soup can" transmitter to DirecTV dishes in a few homes in Pennsylvania to receive wireless broadband service. Verizon already resells DirecTV satellite video service in areas where it does not offer its own FiOS TV product.


Full Story:

http://www.multichannel.com/article/477640-Report_Verizon_Will_End_LTE_Trials_With_DirecTV.php


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

Well there goes hi-speed Internet future for my Vermont cousins


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

If the powers that be at DIRECTV feel that it was worth while during the testing I think Sprint would actually make a better partner as they don't have any competing video services.


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## kymikes (Jan 16, 2008)

Shades228 said:


> If the powers that be at DIRECTV feel that it was worth while during the testing I think Sprint would actually make a better partner as they don't have any competing video services.


Except that a number of articles allude to Sprint starting to feel "spectrum crunch" with the IPhone and 'unlimited data plans' already. If this is true, I don't see them looking for another potential drain on what may be a limited resource.


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

kymikes said:


> Except that a number of articles allude to Sprint starting to feel "spectrum crunch" with the IPhone and 'unlimited data plans' already. If this is true, I don't see them looking for another potential drain on what may be a limited resource.


Their 4G is WiMAX which is different than the specturm crunch of the 3G service they are having. They partner with Clear for 4G.


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## kymikes (Jan 16, 2008)

Shades228 said:


> Their 4G is WiMAX which is different than the specturm crunch of the 3G service they are having. They partner with Clear for 4G.


Not being a Sprint customer, I may be off the mark but I thought their IPhone and newer Smart Phone were 4G. Are their issues only with their 3G network??


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

kymikes said:


> Not being a Sprint customer, I may be off the mark but I thought their IPhone and newer Smart Phone were 4G. Are their issues only with their 3G network??


There is not a true 4G I-Phone. ATT/T-Mobile calls HSPA+ 4G but it's not. Yes currently in larger markets they're having 3G spectrum crunch issues. As they can get people to 4G that should help out. Rumor is the I-Phone 5 will be 4G for the CDMA carriers so it will help them out a lot. Most of the new high end Android phones are 4G so as the power users migrate over it will help.


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## Alan Gordon (Jun 7, 2004)

> A little more than a year ago we were the very first to report that Verizon was working with DirecTV on a fixed LTE trial that would provide residential LTE service using a home-mounted "cantenna." Back in December Verizon stated that those trials were over. "One of our hallmarks is focus, and we're focused on getting (the marketing partnership with Comcast) up and running, and I can't do both, so we made our choice," Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said at the time. Apparently, Verizon learned how to multitask.


SOURCE: DSLReports.com

~Alan


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## RACJ2 (Aug 2, 2008)

As you posted Alan, Verizon is moving forward with the internet offering. Its just not a joint venture with DIRECTV. I read an article a couple weeks ago, similar to the one you have a link to. Where I live it could be available this month, so I'm considering switching because of the speeds they offer. Here is the info from your link that names the first markets:


> According to Verizon, HomeFusion Broadband will be available starting later this month in Birmingham, Dallas and Nashville, and the company hopes to have the service fully deployed to every LTE market by the end of the year.


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## dtv757 (Jun 4, 2006)

NOTE: HomeFusion Broadband is a product of Verizon Wireless NOT Verizon Telecom(Residential, fios)

http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2012/homefusion-broadband-from.html


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