DirecTV is coming down from the clouds thanks to a partnership with Alcatel-Lucent that has turned the satellite provider into a mini-cable TV system by using VDSL2 technology to deliver DirecTV's signals throughout a 2,296-unit condominium community in San Bruno, Calif.
Without this type of system, apartment and condo dwellers needed to either subscribe to a cable/telco wireline service that was delivered to each unit or buy and install a satellite dish, if the homeowners association allowed it. According to an Alcatel-Lucent news release, the San Bruno condo residents are the "first in the United States to benefit from the combination of" VDSL2 and a satellite service to get a bundle of high-speed Internet and voice-over-IP services that "were typically available only to residents in single family homes."
The network leverages existing copper infrastructure throughout the buildings as a conduit for the DirecTV IPAdvantage service that converts DirecTV video signals into IP video packets delivered to IP-enabled receivers of the home wiring. That IP infrastructure can then also support non-video services like data and voice.
For more:
- see this news release
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