AT&T took a lot of flack late last year for not rolling out its U-Verse service in 15 markets, but this week, AT&T brought IPTV to parts of Kansas City, Kansas, which brings its market count up to 15. That's three months late. The carrier plans on launching more markets in 2007, of course, but it won't say which, when or how many. Smart move.
While some of the delays came from middleware glitches, as many media outlets reported, other setbacks included non-tech related issues like video franchising. AT&T is at an impasse with the City of Naperville, Illinois over video franchising rights after more than five months of talks. California and New Jersey have each enacted video franchising laws to streamline the process for new entrants, and the FCC recently set its own guidelines for municipalities, which should limit many of the requests a municipality can make of a telco.
For more on AT&T's completed goal:
- see this article from xchange