AT&T said reactions from early IPTV adopters in San Antonio were "extremely positive" for its U-Verse IPTV service, but the company did not offer any specifics during its Q2 earnings call. The company is targeting 620,000 homes in the first phase of the commercial rollout of the service in San Antonio, TX. U-Verse is built around a fiber-optic network called Project Lightspeed, which uses fiber to the node technology (FTTN) and Microsoft IPTV software. CTO Rick Lindner said AT&T expects to sign up 10 percent of its target audience by the end of this month and is on track to roll out commercial services, including HD service, in 15 to 20 markets by the end of this year. That timeframe is a little later than previously planned.
AT&T also changed its expected costs for Project Lightspeed to reduce 2006 earnings by 5 cents to 7 cents a share, instead of the original forecast of 8 cents to 10 cents, which the company coined in January. These reduced costs helped the company expand its margins in the last quarter and deliver $1.81 billion in net income, up from $1 billion in Q2 of last year.
For more on AT&T's U-Verse plans:
- see this article from Financial Times