Aryeh Bourkoff, an analyst at UBS, a financial services company, asserts that AT&T could buy DirecTV, switching its focus to a satellite strategy and backing away from its Lightspeed IPTV project. As Bourkoff notes, the company’s HomeZone service resells satellite service from EchoStar and DIRECTV.
AT&T and DirecTV have extended their partnership another year in a contract worth $33 million. AT&T provides DIRECTV with toll-free 800 service and related voice and data-network technology to support 18 call centers and 60 corporate wide-area network points of presence.
Meanwhile, Spacenet announced a cheaper 2-way satellite internet service. The new StarBand Nova Pro service for residential customers, utilize the advanced Gilat SkyEdge VSAT platform for improved speed and user experience. The Nova Pro service costs only $49.99 per month for speeds of up to 512 kbps download and 128 kbps upload, while the Nova Ultimate provides speeds of up to 1 Mbps download and 256 kbps upload for $129.99 per month. Both services are available for an equipment purchase price of only $299 plus dealer installation where applicable.
