Offering up more detail on its ongoing IPTV strategy, AT&T said that it would spend $4.6 billion over the next two-and-a-half years to bring IPTV to 41 new markets. The roll out would reach 19 million homes. AT&T is currently trialing its U-verse service in San Antonio and plans to roll out IPTV in Houston next. Competing IPTV player Verizon, for its part, argues that AT&T's fiber-to-the-node, copper-to-the-home infrastructure can't support the ambitious roll out. Rather than relying on traditional telco infrastructure, Verizon has made massive capital investments in fiber-optic cable to power its FiOS service. Verizon has already rolled out its service in 50 markets cutting across seven states. At this point, it seems, the real trick for AT&T will be to leverage its relationships with IPTV consumers to sell VoIP or other add-on services. AT&T is still working with equipment vendors Lucent and 2Wire to roll out residential VoIP, but hasn't provided a roll out date.
For more information on AT&T plans:
- read this article in the The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)
- see this article in Light Reading