IP Democracy: AT&T Launches U-verse High-Def Service

In the grand scheme of things, it’s not news if a multichannel video provider offers high-definition channels. But, AT&T has staked a lot of its future on the delivery of multichannel video over souped-up DSL lines, which, to date, haven’t been able to deliver high-definition video. The bandwidth constraints limited the ability of the telco to offer the increasingly popular, but bandwidth-intensive, high-resolution video service. Without high-def capabilities, AT&T will always be an also-ran in the triple-play race against cable.

All that has seemingly changed…at least in one market. AT&T announced this morning it is offering an HD line-up of more than 25 channels in San Antonio, the first market where the company offered its U-verse TV service. In addition, AT&T has added other new bells and whistles to U-verse, including the ability to program DVRs from the web (for AT&T Yahoo! high-speed customers), the ability to record up to four programs at once with a single DVR unit, an expanded programming line-up of more than 300 channels and, finally, Motorola set-top boxes — AT&T had been making do with generic boxes cobbled together for U-verse.

The telco is also dangling a cool incentive to prospective customers — two free months worth of TV service, including HBO and Cinemax, which could represent a couple of hundred dollars in savings.

Still, it took a long time for the company to rectify the HD problem even in San Antonio. It’s not entirely clear that it’s an easy feat for the telco to offer a rich menu of video, voice and increasingly higher-speed broadband services, which is what AT&T must do if it wants U-verse to be a viable competitive alternative to cable.

(Hat tip to Alan Weinkrantz, whose family loves the U-verse service.)

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 28, 2006 11:02 AM to IP Democracy