Like Man, they be jacking their prices yet again come February 1. In yet another move that displays lack of reality, AT&T is raising their prices for practically every package and service. –
In addition to raising the prices for non-DVR set tops and increasing the price of their movie tier from $15 to $20, AT&T is now saying they’re also raising the price of their U100, U200 and U-family U-Verse IPTV packages for new customers starting February 1. AT&T’s U100 and U-family packages will increase from $44 to $49 per month, while the company’s U200 package will increase from $59 to $64 per month. The move comes shortly after AT&T introduced a new, “Premium” HD tier that costs $5 per month and has all of three channels (Universal HD, MGM HD and Smithsonian HD) — one of which used to be included in their $10 standard HD package.
The press release comes to us touting 1 million subscribers to AT&T’s Uverse TV service by month end, and service availability to 17 million, along with declining cost of delivery. Geeeeze, I’m not sure I’d go around bragging about a huge investment that has earned a 5.8% take rate. I wonder how big the take rate will be for the faster broadband product available to for those who don’t want TV service?
AT&T planned to add one million U-Verse TV subscribers by the end of the year. The company will hit that benchmark next week, Stankey said.
“Operationally, we’ve hit our stride,” he told analysts during a UBS-sponsored conference on Tuesday. The event was broadcast over the Internet.
The company plans to make the service available to 17 million homes by the end of the year.
U-Verse has helped keep AT&T in the game as its traditional digital subscriber line, or DSL, service has faltered against cable competition. Roughly 54% of new U-Verse Internet users didn’t have DSL before, Stankey said.
Also, installation times and costs have fallen, while average revenue per user for video has grown in double digits, percentage-wise, he said. (CNN)
We have noted before issues with both FIOS and uVerse installations. Well here we go again. –
The state Public Service Commission has found that more than half of Verizon FiOS installations inspected on Long Island violated national electric standards, raising potential safety concerns and prompting Verizon to offer customer credits.
Of 92 installations in Nassau, 64 had violations related to grounding, according to an April audit by commission staff. No Suffolk locations were audited then.
In an October 2007 audit there were 62 code violations out of 113 installations inspected in Nassau. Of 19 installations in Suffolk, 12 had similar code violations.
Fiber-optic cables, which Verizon says carry more information and provide a better signal than copper-wire phone lines, are made of glass and do not conduct electricity. The service uses a home’s power source to convert laser-generated light pulses to electrical communications signals.
Ok. The fiber optic does not carry any current. But the various components that are part of the FIOS install DO. So my question would be this one — How does Verizon get away with not having personnel that are licensed electrical contractors? If they are adding new wall outlets that would be a minimum requirement per State law.
My grandmother once told me how Ma Belle used to bundle: a pleasant person would greet you, connect your call by name and give you the time and temperature – all gratis with your service. Of course, non-local calls were very pricey then and most people wrote letters instead. Anyway, I digress. Someone at AT&T seems to have a bundle fetish. Attractive new offerings are always advertised with pricing in “bundles”. And the bundles when bundled up amount to a bundle of cash. Now the latest is a small boost in DSL speed, and the price in ads is the price only offered as part of a bundle.
Quoting Broadband Reports: Though U-Verse users on very short loop lengths say their VDSL service is capable of great speeds, most users are distance limited, restricting their total bandwidth to 25Mbps. AT&T reserves the majority of that for video, leaving users with only 6Mbps of usable bandwidth — not particularly impressive for a “next generation” service. (more…)
Well shucks. You know you move into the neighorhood, install a remote head end for all the neighbors to share. Only come to find out that the house warming you expected turns out to be a real fire. The cause of these errant weine roasts? Lith-Ion battery packs going up in flames.
After four equipment fires in two years, including a Christmas Day 2007 explosion in Wisconsin, AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T – message board) says it is no longer comfortable with the batteries that provide backup power to thousands of its equipment cabinets in neighborhoods all over the U.S.
“Following incidents involving batteries used in AT&T U-verse network cabinets, the company is replacing 17,000 similar batteries, all manufactured by Avestor,” writes an AT&T spokesman, in an email to Light Reading.
“Normally, we would work with a vendor to diagnose problems and develop solutions. We can’t do that in this case because Avestor filed for bankruptcy in October 2006 and closed shortly thereafter. As a result, we have decided to move forward with the removal of all Avestor batteries as quickly as possible,” the spokesman adds.
AT&T says it has no immediate guess as to how quickly it can replace all those batteries. The carrier also declined to speculate on the costs of such an endeavor.
Puts a new twist on the idea of a hot connection.
FIOS, Uverse, Direct TV all want the consumer to use a branded set top box for their ultimate viewing experience. But that dog won’t hunt and here is Exhibit #1 –
This is an open source effort called Entertainer. Entertainer, like Freevo, MythTV and LMC have functions that many set top boxes do not. Read blog feeds, watch YouTube, Watch TV, play any audio format and Video. If you can get it as a RSS feed or a channel option then these systems can display it.
Which brings me to me to the ultimate question — why? Why is Verizon, a company I own shares in, have hundreds on staff here and in India developing FIOS boxes? Most of these FOSS efforts are at most 3-5 core people and a bunch of volunteers. Yet they develop product comparable to and in many cases superior to the corporate effort. Why am I as a shareholder paying for all this? Why isn’t there an industry API for all this? [Don't comment, I know why.] Why don’t I have a fatter dividend check as a consequence?
Entertainer website.
MythTV website.
LinuxMCE website.
[Update]
This is off of HitWise.. Yahoo and the Weather Channel topped every other news source on the net. All content probably not on your std STB. Yet another reason that closed end systems will lag in the content arena.
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