AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson promised in May that Chattanooga customers would have access to the company's U-Verse service "this summer," and on Monday the company is set to deliver on that promise, according to Gregg Morton, president of AT&T Tennessee.
"We are thrilled to offer this innovative video choice to customers in the Chattanooga area," Mr. Morton said in a written announcement.
The Internet, TV and telephony service will be delivered over AT&T's new Internet Protocol network. It will offer several new features to compete with existing fiber-optic and cable offerings by EPB and Comcast, according to AT&T's Bryan Klamer, general manager for home solutions in Tennessee.
"We know customers want a better choice to break free from cable, and AT&T U-verse is the answer," he said.
AT&T says U-verse gives customers the option to manage playback from a single DVR on any TV in the house, the capability to watch up to four channels at one time and the ability to program DVR recordings from a mobile phone or computer. Customers can also pull up personalized weather, sports, traffic and stock information on a ticker called the U-bar.
Additionally, the feature lineup is said to include 130 HD channels, a unified AT&T bill and voice mailbox, and the ability to initiate phone calls from a PC or television.
In response, Comcast spokeswoman Laurie Shipley contended that with 100 HD channels and speeds of up to 105 Mbps, Comcast remains a contender in the three-way battle for living room supremacy.
"Comcast recognizes that Chattanooga is a competitive market," she said, but noted that the company's 3D technology, extensive On Demand library and local ties give it an edge.
Harold DePriest, president and CEO of EPB, said he, too, welcomed the competition.
"The issue is that we have a tremendous amount of bandwidth compared to U-Verse or the cable company, so the amount of bandwidth and the Internet speed, and the quality of the video is a huge competitive advantage for us," Mr. DePriest said.
EPB uses fiber-optic cable that currently delivers speeds of up to 150 Mbps, which Mr. DePriest calls the "fastest residential speed in the country."
AT&T's IP-based technology allows the company to stream content directly to users as demanded, which provides a more responsive menu and channel-switching experience, and doesn't limit the total number of channels available to users because only one channel is streamed at a time, according to Mr. Klamer.
Q: What is Internet-Protocol?A: The company's unique IP-based service means that all content exists "in the cloud" on separate servers, with the set-top boxes merely serving as conduits to retrieve data, according to company officials. This means upgrades to things like four-channel viewing and HD-DVR are seamless and require no hardware changes, and it also gives AT&T the ability to provide more channels, offer a "quicker interface" that is more responsive to inputs and introduce advanced iPhone and PC interpretability, according to AT&T.Q: When can I find out if U-verse is available in my neighborhood?A: While the company won't reveal specific plans due to competition concerns, customers can check att.com/u-verse and enter their street address to see if they qualify, or sign up to be notified when service becomes available in their area.In the meantime, the company will roll out service throughout Chattanooga on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. AT&T has so far invested more than $1 billion in its wireless and wired networks in Tennessee, according to a company spokespersonSource: AT&T
"It also allows us to seamlessly make upgrades, like with total-home DVR, our users woke up one morning and they had total-home DVR with no hardware changes," Mr. Klamer said.
The company also updated it's four-channel viewing feature, called multiview, to include any channels chosen by the user, by simply updating the server software accessed by the set-top boxes, he said.
The next update consumers could see, Mr. Klamer said, may be the ability to record shows on a home DVR, and play them back remotely over an iPhone or other smartphone.
In a news release, AT&T gave a significant amount of credit to the Tennessee General Assembly's efforts to open Tennessee's video services marketplace. AT&T supported the Competitive Cable and Video Services Act of 2008, and Mr. Morton thanked state Rep. Gerald McCormick, R-Hamilton County, and Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey for "helping to bring competition and choice for customers."
"As Tennessee policymakers, our goal was to increase investment throughout the state and give consumers more choices and innovative new services, and I'm honored to help AT&T celebrate this launch," Rep. McCormick said.
Mr. Ramsey agreed, saying, "This investment by AT&T is great news for Chattanooga, as it brings exciting new technology and new jobs to our community."
U-verse has grown its TV subscriber base from 1.5 million in the second quarter of 2009 to 2.5 million in the second quarter of 2010, and celebrated its first $1 billion revenue quarter, four years after its initial launch, the company announced in its quarterly report.
AT&T has been able to rapidly expand its potential customer base by rolling out its pair bonding technology, which uses two phone lines operating in tandem to increases the range and bandwidth of the digital data transmission, the company said.