AT&T (T) has reportedly expanded the footprint of its U-verse high-speed Internet access services to cover all its U-verse markets. The carrier’s “Max Turbo” high-speed Internet services are now available in 120 markets across 22 states.

AT&T broadened its U-verse Internet services with the launch of Max Turbo in late 2009. The service offers peak downlink and uplink speeds of 24 megabits per second (Mbps) and 3 Mbps, respectively. Max Turbo was initially launched for residential and small business customers in Austin, San Antonio and St. Louis.

Max Turbo represents an upgrade over AT&T’s Max 18 service, which offers downlink speeds 18 Mbps. Residential customers can avail Max Turbo as a part of a bundle with the carrier’s U-verse TV video service.

AT&T continues to experience a healthy market penetration of its U-verse services that consist of U-verse TV, U-verse Internet and U-verse Voice. U-verse, which aggressively competes with archrival Verizon’s (VZ) FiOS footprint, is helping Ma Bell to offset the losses in the legacy wireline voice business.

U-verse TV is driving the growth of AT&T’s broadband business as more than 90% of the associated video subscribers are currently bundled with the carrier’s broadband services. AT&T exited 2009 with 17.3 million broadband customers with U-verse Internet representing 12% of the total.

AT&T continues to experience accelerated erosion in its wireline voice access lines as cable companies in overlapping markets are offering alternative services at attractive price points. Cable operators have been fierce contenders as they offer higher bandwidth services to the customers.

U-verse Internet is facing stiff competition from national cable giants such as Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Charter Communications who are offering their high-speed Internet services leveraging the revolutionary DOCSIS 3.0 platform.

However, AT&T is aggressively marketing U-verse bundled services, which are helping it to protect markets from cable operators. The carrier’s continued initiatives to expand the scale of content delivery and service availability remain encouraging.
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