AT&T ends Dish satellite TV partnership

Satellite TV provider Dish Network said Tuesday that AT&T will end its agreement to bundle its TV service with AT&T's broadband and phone service at the end of the year.

AT&T and Dish have had a joint marketing deal since July 2003, which allows AT&T to package the Dish TV service with AT&T's phone and Internet packages. But AT&T has decided not to renew the agreement, and as required by the contract between the two companies, AT&T is giving Dish six months notice that the deal will expire December 31, 2008.

The move is likely a way for AT&T to negotiate a better deal with either Dish or its competitor DirecTV. In April, AT&T expanded its partnership with Dish in the old BellSouth territory. (AT&T bought BellSouth in 2006.) And it stopped marketing a similar package with DirecTV.

At the time, it looked as if AT&T had dropped DirecTV for Dish. But AT&T has always maintained that it's discussing partnerships with both companies. And now it looks like the company is free to pit one company against the other to get the best possible price.

AT&T said in a statement that it will continue to discuss options with Dish even though it has terminated the current agreement.

Video is a key part of AT&T's strategy. The company has spent millions of dollars over the past few years to upgrade its network with fiber so that it can deliver TV over its IP network. The new U-Verse service is up and running in parts of AT&T's network. But the company isn't able to deploy U-Verse everywhere, so it has been relying on deals with satellite TV providers to deliver a so-called triple-play bundle that includes TV, phone, and broadband services in a single package.

[Grammar-Nazi]

AT&T has recently announced it will be entering the cable business in the state of Tennessee. Perhaps they have no plans to continue satellite bundling.

[sinaloghavi]

Yes and why not provide their own satellite service? I'm sure they have enough resources!

Sina Loghavi

[rcrusoe]

Funny, I would have sworn that AT&T had been sending me DirecTV offers for the past few months.

[baconstang]

I have Dish and Earthlink ( with VOIP ). So happy never to have to write another check to AT&T.

[dish-tv]

I wonder why when Verizon is pushing FiOS so hard, AT&T is taking it's time with U-Verse.
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[JohnQTV]

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[attheirmercy]

Well, I don't get it. We have our home phone with ATT and get a bill with the ATT heading on it. We ALSO are billed, on this same billing statement for our DISH TV service. Then, we get a separate bill from DISH, under the DISH heading, for our WildBlue - satellite, ISP service.

Here is the confusing part: We must call ATT about WildBlue ISP problems because ATT bought out the Sprint (broadband) rights to our area, according to the FCC letter we got in May 2008. We were told that because ATT could not provide broadband to our specific area, our only choice was to go with a satellite service, through ATT, namely WildBlue. We had had Sprint broadband for five years and the service was outstanding, with great upload and download speeds and we received Earthlink with the package.

Now that we have ATT - via their WildBlue ISP, the service is awful, the upload speeds and the downloads speeds allow one to read a book while waiting for a screen to load. If you use the system too much, they cut back your service!

OK, what I do not understand is how ATT could bump out Sprint and then not provide us with the same level of service on all ATT services. The chain of command is ATT = DISH TV = DISH - WildBlue ISP. In reading this blog, it sounds like ATT has the monopoly and I thought we did away with those a long time ago.

So, if ATT did away with DISH at the end of 2008, how come we are still getting billed by ATT for our DISH TV service and still have to call ATT for our WildBlue ISP service and who is in charge of all this mess?

[northwestprincess]

ALERT! If you live in Washington DISH does not provide the ABC network. Here we are, not "LOST" in Seattle, not "GREY" in Seattle! When you cancel DISH to go with DIRECT , DISH will hit you with a cancellation fee. Even though DISH caused you to miss the Academy awards, Lost, Greys Anatomy, Good morning America and Jeopordy, they have the rude audacity to not care, and, they are very rude on the phone. I think AT & T had issues with this falling company also.

[attheirmercy]

Happened to talk to someone who works for ATT and was told ATT is not the company it once was. After discussing all the changes, none of them for the better, he explained that there is only ONE way to make a point with ATT and that is to file a formal complaint to the PUC. These complaints require ATT to respond within a certain period of time and it actually costs them money to do so and they absolutely hate these PUC complaints. He said the only other way to get ATT's attention, is via the bottom line and that means going with a different company.

[perpekto]

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