AT&T and Cisco team on cable box with Wi-Fi video
updated 02:50 pm EST, Mon March 7, 2011
AT&T to bring out Cisco set-top box with Wi-Fi
AT&T on Monday announced it will soon offer a set-top box equipped with Wi-Fi. The Cisco ISB7005 will be offered to U-Verse customers and has just gone through FCC testing. The device will have Wi-Fi but, rather than use it for local network sharing, will let users receive TV signals without the need to connect a co-axial cable.
The connection comes largely thanks to the service's relatively low HD video bitrates. The internal 2x2 dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi radio can stream the near 5Mbps video stream with no interruption on most connections. In comparison, HDTV over satellite is 5-8Mbps and HDTV over cable signals are 16Mbps. The box also has an Ethernet and HomePNA wired networking interfaces.
The Wi-Fi card is on a separate board that can be installed or removed by AT&T technicians, suggesting other AT&T devices may also get it in the future.
