As promised during its second quarter earnings announcement, AT&T (NYSE: T) will be pushing U-verse into multi-tenant buildings as part of its Project VIP infrastructure upgrade.
"We expect to reach approximately 250,000 of our 1 million customer locations targets by the end of 2013," John Stephens, executive vice president and CFO said during prepared statements delivered to analysts earlier this month. "We are just six months into our plan, but as you can see we are making progress and we are very excited about the growth potential Project VIP brings to AT&T."
The first evidence of this might be happening in Tennessee, where AT&T and Dewhirst Properties announced an agreement to deliver "100 percent Internet Protocol (IP)-based AT&T U-verse TV, U-verse High-speed Internet and U-verse Voice" over fiber to a new multi-dwelling apartment complex in Knoxville, AT&T said in a press release.
David Dewhirst, the developer for the apartments hailed the U-verse service as "an improvement over our satellite TV service we offer at our other properties" and said that it "gives us a distinct advantage over other proprieties downtown while also boosting the value of the apartments we offer here."
It was also credited with helping Knoxville itself.
"People wanting to live in the center city are all about convenience and bringing U-verse TV and high-speed Internet directly to them is a perfect complement for the numerous amenities of living downtown," Michelle Hummer, director of the Central Business Improvement District said in the press release.
Separately, AT&T said it would add 100 new jobs throughout Tennessee to meet what spokeswoman Cathy Lewandowski told The Tennessean is "growing consumer demand for wireless and broadband services and our need to build the infrastructure to meet that demand."
The jobs include part-time positions in customer support and retail sales, and full time jobs for technicians to install U-verse, the newspaper said.
For more:
- AT&T issued this press release
- Morningstar has this earnings call transcript
- and The Tennessean has this story
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