AT&T’s U-verse IPTV Service Ready to Expand with HD
projections indicate they will get their 3001st customer today!
For those of you keeping score, AT&T has been offering its U-verse IPTV service to a total of 30,000 potential homes in san antonio. So far, 3,000 signed up meaning a 10% adoption rate. Perhaps significantly, that test does not include a high definition offering.
Late next month, AT&T will begin offering its IPTV service in the Houston market late next month with HD service. Then it will launch HD in San Antonio. After that, an HD-capable AT&T U-verse will be rolled out to 15 markets by the end of the year.
From what I've seen of their Microsoft navigation software and IF there is a substantial increase in the number of HD channels over Comcast, I just may make the plunge then. Likely, I will keep both services for a while just to report back differences to you.
One of the reasons that AT&T says it has not rolled out the service faster is that they wanted to wait until it was prepared to offer HD en masse. This is smart marketing but they also wanted to avoid additional costs. For example, in San Antonio, it will incur expenses to retrofit current customers with HD-capable equipment.
On a conference call to discuss AT&T's third-quarter results, CFO Rick Lindner said, AT&T U-verse's "picture quality is excellent, [its] features and user interface, I think, beat cable in side-by-side tests." I actually have seen what they are offering and he just might be right. But a word of caution before buying lots of AT&T stock: cable can make adjustments to compete if they need to.
Posted by admin on October 24th, 2006 :: Filed under IPTV
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November 13th, 2006
With such a small number of users in San Antonio (its headquarter’s location) why did AT&T plan a launch into 14 other cities before expanding it offering to more than its 2% of potential customers in San Antonio. And the assumsion that every customer is going to want HD equipment is still questionable – so the equipment currently deploy will find a home somewhere – since it appears there will be addition charges for HD services like there is with cable. And I wonder whether its customer service for this service will be any better than that for its local and long distance phone services are now or will there be a race to the bottom to match the service provided by cable operators.
November 29th, 2006
Because I live in San Antonio, I am an early trial user of the ATT U verse IPTV offering. HD was announced yesterday. Look for an upcoming review at my blog: http://www.3screens.net
June 25th, 2009
Great info on this ongoing battle!
http://www.datcompros.com