Telecommunications is a well-developed industry in the United States and AT&T is one of the major mobile phone, television and internet service providers of the country. With the introduction of streaming entertainment by Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, among others, the performances of these networks are of interest to many consumers: how good is AT&T’s network for streaming video? To better understand streaming at AT&T, here is a brief overview of the company’s strengths and weaknesses in this area.
AT&T's Mobile Network
Today,AT&T Channel Lineup and TV Listings is a mobile carrier that has invested a lot of resources towards its 4G LTE network that currently reaches more than 99% of the American people. This forms the basis for video streaming to mobile devices as mentioned earlier in the text. Compared to the previous 3G technology, 4G LTE has higher speed capability thus reduce on buffering time. While other sources such as OpenSignal and RootMetrics for independent testing of the carriers, normally place AT&T among some of the top carriers in the country, in terms of 4G data transmission speeds, the carrier is still able to stream high definition videos with minimal buffering in most areas.
However, there are times that congestion problems arise especially in the heavily populated urban centers during some certain hours of the day or night. It has been for some time that AT&T has been redoing its mobile network through adding new spectrum and small cell sites. Even newer LTE features like carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO and 256QAM can offer a speed increase where supported by the network. All in all, while AT&T may not have the fastest 4G network, it is still very adequate for most mobile video streaming.
Home Internet Plans
When the streaming is at home, the two main attributes are the download speed of the broadband connection and the data allowance. Currently, AT&T’s home internet choices are mostly provided by fiber and DSL services.
AT&T Fiber remains unique due to the fact that it truly provides high-speed Internet connection that can go up to 1 Gigabit per second in certain locations. This remarkably rapid connection is quite capable of supporting multiple 4K streams with almost no lag. Yet, its availability still remains somewhat restricted though – at the moment, AT&T Fiber is available to approximately 14 million customer premises.
Out there is the AT&T Internet using DSL lines that offer a speed of 10 to 100 Mbps. There is a fundamental plan that starts and offers 10 Mbps and may not be able to handle HD streaming all the time. To improve the smoothness, the higher speed bands are likely to be more effective for households that use a lot of Netflix or Youtube streaming services.
Another important aspect that qualifies the unlimited data as important for streaming is that streaming involves the use of a lot of data with no limit. AT&T struggles with this – most home internet plans offered by AT&T come with data caps of 150 GB monthly and above. Customers can opt for higher data usage tariffs that have no cap, but this increases the overall base tariff.
AT&T TV Streaming Service
Besides, offering the network for streaming, AT&T also has its own Streaming TV option: AT&T TV. This is similar to the concept of Sling TV or YouTube TV and provides live cable channels along with cloud-based DVR.
AT&T TV, as a streaming TV provider, continues to receive both positive and negative feedbacks regarding its picture quality and the absence of certain features from its rivals. While it is an obvious perk of being an AT&T service, it gives AT&T video priority by not counting it toward data caps on AT&T home internet plans, which raises net neutrality issues. Nevertheless, it offers an alternative, which may be more suitable for cord-cutters interested in watching live TV channels.
With the present streaming requirements, AT&T brings out rather well-equipped current telecommunication provisions – a strong mobile network, extremely fast fiber internet (where available), and fairly competitive streaming TV offers. The principal disadvantages remain the lack of fibre access and restrictive broadband bandwidth for those who stream more at home.
Key Takeaways:
- A qualitative analysis of AT&T and LTE shows that the 4G LTE network provides a reliable speed for most of the mobile video streaming. The application of 5G soon will also add to the quality since it is still on the way.
- Other service providers are offering fiber connections with gigabit capability for smooth streaming but it is still limited in some areas.
- For instance, while other AT&T Internet DSL plans come at higher tiers, the lower tiers may experience issues while streaming high quality videos.
- Price and restrictive data caps on AT&T’s home internet make it a less-than-ideal setup for households streaming more frequently or more content.
On balance, therefore, while AT&T’s efforts in improving network capacity and streaming are not perfect yet, the carrier is moving in the right direction. With 5G and other upgrades being implemented, both mobile and home connectivity will continue to grow at the many locations that AT&T serves. Of course, for cord cutting households with good ATT Fiber availability today, the stream quality can already be good in many areas.
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