AT&T Promises New Version of DirecTV Now Early Next Year AT&T is promising its users a notably-revamped version of its DirecTV Now streaming video platform sometime in the early part of next year. Speaking on the company's recent earnings call, AT&T CFO John Stephens said that whenever the new version of the streaming service launches, users can expect a revamped interface, greater support for on demand and pay-per-view content, as well as broader support for multiple viewing streams at once.

That said, there were some vague hints that the improvements may come alongside a price hike for the company's streaming service. "With all those opportunities go additional opportunities to raise revenues, and revenues that customers would be willing to pay for and improve the quality of the service,” the CFO said. Wells Fargo had a little more detail on AT&T's planned changes in a research note to investors spotted by Fierce Wireless. “DTV Now 2.0 is coming,” the Wells Fargo analysts wrote. “Importantly, this will streamline the User Interface (UI) for the customer (T currently has different UIs for DTV, DTV Now, U-verse and Sunday Ticket). This upgrade will also likely bring with it some additional functionality (i.e. Cloud DVR, additional streams, etc.). Timing is expected in Q1'18 (when we expect T will also own a lot more content and have some anchor tenants to build around DTV Now...yes even with today’s headlines).” While AT&T has been more courageous than many of its competitors by actually embracing streaming video (instead of, say, While AT&T has been more courageous than many of its competitors by actually embracing streaming video (instead of, say, doubling proces or paying empty lip service to value), things still haven't gone quite as the telco would have hoped. AT&T and DirecTV continue to lose huge swaths of customers to cable competitors, in part thanks to AT&T's failure to upgrade huge swaths of its network to next-generation fixed-line broadband speeds. While DirecTV Now improvements could aid this equation, any significant price hikes aren't likely to.







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Most recommended from 94 comments

Lets Go

join:2005-03-05

Homer, NY 7 recommendations Lets Go Member $35 Promo I am one of the ones that signed up to get the "grandfathered" $35 per month go big promo. I have been hanging onto it with the promise of a DVR at some point in the future. A year later I am still waiting and I guess I will have to wait longer. If they try and charge more for the DVR I will cancel. But then the joke would be on me as they got my $$ for the past year. elefante72

join:2010-12-03

East Amherst, NY 6 recommendations elefante72 Member Except for Grandpa Except for the people who came in at $35 for all the channels the new packages today already cost more than my cable bundle. The DVR is still beta but they apparently have upped VoD.



At the end of the day they are going to have to make it like Netflix (everything on demand) and just get rid of the DVR (like Youtube TV) which they "call" a DVR but really isn't. And give content people want at a good price (that means excise sports into their own tier, REALLY).



That and their packages are really no different than cable packages, so not breaking any ground there.



So who is their real competitor? the same ol same ol. And of course giveaways for bundling w/ cell and the like and maybe sprinkle in some HBO. Knowing how AT&T operates you can't help but imagine they are going to simply outprice themselves or make it ultra complicated like Hulu, or both.

srtdodge05

Premium Member

join:2011-10-16

Ypsilanti, MI 5 recommendations srtdodge05 Premium Member Keep talking Hopefully it'll include more streams and 150+ hrs of cloud dvr

tigerpaw509

join:2011-01-19 4 recommendations tigerpaw509 Member Always late to the Party History repeating itself yet again.They had to have Uverse and now they only want that for internet.So they buy Dtv and dont want the satellites to save money and make you stream it.Sorta like the farmer buying a Dairy farm then to save money sells off the cows joebear29

totesmcgoats

join:2003-07-20

Alabaster, AL 3 recommendations joebear29 Member launching without DVR was ridiculous Signed up for the trial and immediately canceled when I realized no DVR at all - made it completely worthless. A service like this with no DVR is third rate in 2017 and something AT&T should have been embarrassed to put their name on. Craiger

join:2012-07-05

Chesterfield, MO 2 recommendations Craiger Member Is This UVerseTV's Replacement? What if their really isn't two OTT services that AT&T is doing but they were really talking about DTV Now 2.0? What if instead of merging DTV and UVerseTV and having that service over SatelliteTV and Managed IPTV, AT&T decided to do DTV Now over unmanaged IPTV as the UVerse TV replacement?