AT&T is not building a cloud gaming business — but it might be angling for a cut

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Net neutrality advocates might want to read this, too.

directly from a search resultNo current cloud gaming service offers anything of the sort.

But, after speaking to the man in charge of these AT&T initiatives, we’ve learned that AT&T isn’t planning to create such a thing itself. In fact, the company’s experiments aren’t pointing toward a cloud gaming business at all. “We’re not going to turn it into a business,” says Matthew Wallace, AT&T’s assistant vice president of 5G product and innovation. “Our goal in life is not to provide a gaming app or gaming service; it’s to provide the underlying network capability and then make those capabilities available to the gaming companies and customers.”I ask the question other ways, too, just to be sure I’m understanding correctly.

A poorly understood fact about cloud gaming is that a fast-in-terms-of-download-speed connection isn’t fast enough. Far more important is latency — here, the time it takes for your button press to make its way to a remote server, move your game character, and make its way all the way back to your screen. Wallace says AT&T has learned that both speed and latency have to be consistent for cloud gaming and that consistency has “definitely held back cellular networks.

And there, AT&T might have a thought on how to dramatically improve the consistency, but it’s a potentially controversial one. Wallace says the company’s been testing quality-of-service adjustments that could “ensure resources are allocated to customers who are using a cloud gaming app.

 

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