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It's been over a year since AT&T debuted DirecTVNow. Still having issues.

A

azcoyote

DirecTVNow is one year old and now into its thirteeth month, AT&T still hasn't ironed out major kinks in the streaming service. At $35.00/month, you get 60 channels supposedly at 1080p resolution. But the probelms continue with it's service:

Excessive buffering to the extent that watching in evenings and at night is darn near impossible (server overloads?)

Continual downgrading of the resolution to 720p or worse at prime times.

A station guide that is very unstable and is inaccessible from time to time. They are working on a beta app now that allows On Demand and has other features. They do have a selection of free movies and seasons of TV shows to watch.

Lack of agreements with many channels for users to access their GO or NOW online streaming features. AT&T did make a formal arrangement with HBO to allow subscribers to access HBONow for life, as long as you are an AT&T wireless customer enrolled in AT&T Unlimited Plus or Choice Plans. But the buffering is so bad at times (especially via Roku devices) that it's also unwatchable.

The AT&T Forums are somewhat helpful, and if you are lucky to get a problem escalated, the tech will call you up to help troubleshoot and provide credit on your bill. The nice part about this service, when it works, is that AT&T drops the price to $10.00/month if you have the Unlimited Plus or Choice plans on you wireless phone.
 
The excessive buffering sounds to me like a connection speed issue. Does this problem happen on other video streaming services?

One reason I stayed away from AT&T in my area was because they couldn't deliver the speed I wanted. I've been told they're upgrading a lot of their service, but it will take time.
 
No buffering on other services. I have Pluto TV and Newsmax and the both stream without buffering or "blanking" on my Roku unit. I have fairly high-speed Internet and run Cat 6+ from my Asus3100 Ac router, and am using a 16-channel Arris 6190 modem. I pay for 150MB/sec and on Ookla speedtest, top out at $175MB/sec down and 23 MB/sec up. The tier 1 agents on AT&T's DTVN chat admit they are having some issues "keeping up." I suspect that AT&T didn't plan on so many signups so soon and they are trying to increase server capacity/throughput.
 
A friend I work with has DirecTV Now and says it's doing good but he has Comcast high speed internet so that might make a difference.
 
With a blazing 6 MB connection I tried You Tube TV and it actually worked. My Phone company Frontier is now throttling speeds and will be glad to sell me 'tokens' to enhance my SD viewing experience. I finally decided to keep DirecTV via dish as the only other video provider out here is a Mono SD Cable company and Dish. My agreement just went up $5 for 2018 yet they are giving me $45 off for 12 months and a bunch of premium channels. If I wanted a 12 MB connection my Telephone company wanted $59.95, my DirecTV is $69.95
 
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