http://www.multichannel.com/news/people/enrique-rodriguez-lead-att-directv-integration-report/393832
Enrique Rodriguez, a former Cisco Systems and Microsoft exec who most recently was with Sirius XM, has been named executive vice president and chief technical officer for AT&T, the company confirmed.
In that role, hell oversee both U-verse and DirecTV and help to lead up the technical integration of those services, Variety first reported, noting that former DirecTV CTO Rômulo Pontual left after AT&T closed its merger with DirecTV in July. AT&T also confirmed Pontual's departure. ).
http://www.fiercecab...aper/2015-09-16
"Stephens also said that he expects AT&T to be able to negotiate better rights deals with content providers now that it has a total of 26 million customers that could potentially view the content. "We are working with content providers to bring these prices in line and now we have 26 million subscribers to make an impact on that," he said.
When asked if he expects AT&T U-verse customers to migrate to DirecTV, he said that AT&T hopes to give customers a choice but that there may be DirecTV packages that offer cost savings to U-verse customers that may provide incentive for customers to switch. Indeed, Wells Fargo analysts noted that there's a $17 difference on average between U-verse and DTV platforms. "In the event of this sub migration, we would expect these subs to benefit from the lower DTV rate card (which is a positive for the T cost structure)," noted Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche.
Huang said AT&T plans to keep DirecTV's Genie set-top box hardware and install a new platform and user interface on the hardware that combines U-verse and DirecTV offerings.
Interestingly, Stephens also noted that the company is cross-training its installer force so they can install multiple products -- U-verse and DirecTV -- because the company wants to bundle its DirecTV product with its U-verse broadband service. Stephens noted that being able to do one truck roll and install both products will provide cost savings. "We are getting our technicians trained for a simple truck role so we can sell video products in our U-verse footprint."
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