Unstrung say AT&T will roll out its U-verse broadband video service (FAQ), which includes high-definition television, in 15 to 20 markets before the end of 2006.
Up until now the has offered its U-verse service to 30,000 people in San Antonio and held one, limited HDTV trial in Houston.
“Wireless is at the top of our list,” says Scott Helbing, AT&T executive vice president of entertainment, who is responsible for acquiring programming content for AT&T’s U-verse.
Cable operators don’t have a wireless product right now. A few of the bigger ones, including Time Warner, are working with Sprint to develop a wireless service. But that year-old effort has yet to yield a commercial product.
Unstrung reports that video hub offices (VHOs), which act as regional video headends throughout AT&T’s local network, span 13 states. The VHOs sit in between the company’s national content aggregation centers (master headends) and its more than 140 IP video serving offices (local distribution points).
While the list of AT&T’s VHOs is much longer than 15 to 20 markets, our sources have further weighed in on the cities where they have reason to believe the carrier is most likely to turn on its fiber-fed broadband, phone, and TV services next. The cities believed to be first on AT&T’s rollout list, in alphabetical order by state, are listed below:
- Little Rock, Ark.
- Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose, Calif.
- Hartford and New Haven, Conn.
- Chicago, Ill.
- Indianapolis, Ind.
- Detroit, Mich.
- Kansas City and St. Louis, Mo.
- Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla.
- Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio
- Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Lubbock, Texas
- Milwaukee, Wis.
Here’s a map showing our sources’ projections for AT&T’s U-verse coverage, stemming from its VHO locations, by the end of this year.
Our sources say that the carrier is also planning for IP video capabilities in the following areas:
- Fayetteville and Fort Smith, Ark.
- Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto, Monterey, Sacramento, and Stockton, Calif.
- South Bend, Ind.
- Champagne, Decatur, and Springfield, Ill.
- Hutchinson and Wichita, Kan.
- Battle Creek, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, and Saginaw, Mich.
- Springfield, Mo.
- Reno, Nevada
- Dayton, Toledo, and Worthington, Ohio
- El Paso, Midland, and Odessa, Texas
- Appleton and Green Bay, Wis.
“Houston is going to be our next market, as we’ve said,” says AT&T spokesman Wes Warnock. “Beyond that, I can’t comment.”
Project Lightspeed, is the AT&T/SBC initiative to expand its fiber-optics network deeper into neighborhoods. That delivers IPTV via AT&T’s U-verse TV, voice and high-speed Internet access services.
AT&T has some 30,000 IPTV subscribers while Verizon this week announced they have half-a-million Fios customers, but only 118,000 of them have FiosTV.
A recent study by the Convergence Consulting Group predicted that phone companies will have less than 1% of TV subscribers by the end of 2006 and only 6% by the end of 2009. Meanwhile, cable companies are expected to have 8% of residential phone customers by the end of this year, and 22% by the end of 2009, says the study.
Related DailyWireless stories include; AT&T Vrs VoIP, IPTV Heads Home, Movie Downloading, Clearwire: IPTV Carrier?, Be Your Own TV Network, WorldView, Intelsat Offers IPTV, The IPTV Gamble, AT&T’s WiFi TV, NAB 2006, IPTV: Is It Soup Yet?, IPTV Networking, Telco’s Left Behind in IPTV Armageddon?, PBS + MovieBeam, Cuban: Broadcasting Not Dead, Wireless IP-TV Box, IP-TV End Game, Cisco Buying Scientific Atlanta, SBC Picks IP-TV Settops, GoogleNet?, The Free Triple Play, VDSL-2 Ratified, IPTV: Is It Soup Yet?, IP-TV Settops, Legislators: Don’t Mess With SBC, DirecTV + WiMax?, Muni Wireless Laws, and Duopoly Laws.
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