Sage Advice: "Just get over"Microsoft glitch rumors

The Register is, for once, looking to poke holes in recently hyped rumors about Microsoft's middleware solution and AT&T's IPTV U-Verse system. Rumor once had it that a glitch in the Microsoft middleware could lead U-Verse subscribers to miss crucial moments of big events like the Super Bowl, since the fast channel changing, hosted on D servers located live inside the network, could potentially crash the service if everyone tried to change channels say, during Super Bowl commercials. But according to The Register, such a crash is unlikely, nay near impossible, given Microsoft's backup system which is good old IGMP multicast, like every other IPTV system.

Recent rumors propagated by Light Reading suggested that the AT&T U-Verse trial in San Antonio was suffering from lost packets, which could supposedly lead to service-wide failure if all viewers needed the same packet resent. Fastweb is built the same way and their 500,000 subs have never experienced such a catastrophic failure, however, I'm not sure that they watch the SuperBowl. In any case, word is that the AT&T trial users have experienced pixelation for 2 or 3 seconds every few months, while the average digital cable viewer experiences such pixelation more frequently. Any thoughts on this clouded he-said-she-said are most welcome.

For more on the AT&T U-Verse diffused hype:
- see this article from The Register

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