The answer is - I don't know.
And even if I did know, it would be through testing of the system in my area and my findings would only apply to specific set-ups that are similar to mine.
Putting video on the network is nothing new, and the desire to watch video from smartphones has been around for awhile as well.
But now AT&T has a packaged deal specifically for that purpose.
I haven't personally tested this service (I'd like to), but I have put together similar integrations with varying degrees of success. The one constant issue facing this concept is the data speed and service coverage over your phone's wireless connection. A secondary issue is the network connection available at the camera site.
At an AT&T conference a few months ago, I did learn that their wireless network efforts are substantially more robust than before. They are always striving for faster connections that are available in more places, but what I was most impressed with was the resources they are committing to make sure their networks stay up and running. They are focusing on the law enforcement, public safety and security markets much harder than ever before and they realize how the weak link in most wireless data integrations is the reliability of the connection itself.
So maybe they have been able to get the speed and reliability problems down to an acceptable level to consider this type of thing for a security feature, I'd have to see it for myself before recommending it of course.
But one thing bothers me:
Has there been some major breakthrough in DSL technology? Am I missing something? I just can't see how using DSL to feed your video to the network, than trying to view that feed over a wireless connection has any chance of working well.
Please tell me if I've missed something.
This looks to me like another situation where sales folks see "DSL" and lump it in there with normal network speeds and assume it works just the same. There may be cases where video fed over a DSL connection is watchable from another solid network connection - but I just don't see it have any quality over a wireless connection.
So - except for that DSL wrinkle, I do think this AT&T service is something to look into causiously. If I have an oppertunity to myself, I'll be sure to post my findings.
