AT&T Inc. (T) has announced the expansion of its U-verse offering with the launch of services in Greenville and Asheville, South Carolina. Residents of these locations will have an alternative option for cable TV starting from August 10, 2009, and will have access to the premium contents and features offered by the company’s U-verse bundled services.
AT&T continues to enjoy encouraging market penetration of its U-verse services that bundles U-verse TV, U-verse high-speed Internet and U-verse Voice offerings. In order to drive customer adoption of its U-verse TV (an Internet protocol based TV service), the company has introduced several new features and extensions such as the total Home DVR (digital video recorder), Video-on-Demand and extensive High Definition (HD) channels. To expand its video service offerings, AT&T is also offering a co-branded satellite TV service in collaboration with Direct TV.
U-verse video subscriber base reached 1.6 million at the end of the most recent quarter, registering net new additions of 248,000 subscribers. U-verse TV is also driving the growth of the company’s broadband Internet business, as more than 90% of associated video subscribers are currently bundled with AT&T’s broadband services.
The company has broadened its U-verse high speed Internet access services with the launch of Internet Max and Max 18, which offers downlink speeds of 10 megabits per second and 18 megabits per second, respectively.
AT&T continues to promote bundled services (wireless, Internet, video, voice) which help it to protect markets more effectively from alternative service providers such as the cable operators. The company is experiencing accelerated erosion of its wireline voice access lines as cable companies in overlapping markets are aggressively offering services at attractive price points.
The expansion of U-verse services in the new markets of South Carolina will enable AT&T to compete with the incumbent cable TV operator Charter Communications. The company’s popular U-verse TV service incorporates many advanced features that are not offered by Charter. In addition to faster channel switching capability and 110 premium high-definition channels, U-verse video service can also be bundled with AT&T’s wireless service.
U-verse continues to boost consumer data revenue and ARPU (average monthly revenue per user) growth in the wireline segment. AT&T plans to expand its U-verse network deployment to cover 30 million homes by 2011.
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