AT&T Satisfied with Progress in Video Rollout
AT&T’s U-Verse TV service is meeting the company’s expectations and proving popular with subscribers where it’s available, John Stankey, group president of the company’s telecom business, told a Merrill Lynch conference Wednesday. While Stankey didn’t comment on the 700 MHz auction, he said the company’s acquisition of spectrum from Aloha Partners puts AT&T in a strong position as it rolls out advanced wireless services. “We're having good success in the market,” Stankey said of U-Verse. He estimated that the video market in AT&T’s territory is worth $35 billion annually.
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Stankey said on average AT&T is seeing 7.3 percent penetration for the service three to six months after making U-Verse available, and 13.4 percent after a year. “It’s very consistent with the set of expectations we laid out when we started this initiative,” he said.
At the end of the first quarter, AT&T averaged 10,000 U-Verse installations weekly, compared to 12,000 now and projections of 40,000 at year’s end, Stankey said. He said the company isn’t “where we want to be” on the U-Verse rollout based on all measurements, but AT&T is making progress on installation times, repair duration and churn.
Commenting on wireless deployment, Stankey said the company has an average of 77 MHz of spectrum in the top 100 U.S. markets, including 10 MHz of advanced wireless service spectrum and 58 MHz of PCS spectrum. The Aloha deal gave the company 12 MHz of spectrum in 72 of the top 100 markets. “Our spectrum position is unmatched at this point,” Stankey said. “As data moves forward we're going to be in a great position. You know we made a very preemptive move in acquiring spectrum form Aloha Partners to give us some very strong, 700 MHz-capable spectrum.”
Stankey also said AT&T had to act fast to counter Verizon Wireless’s new unlimited minutes rate plan (CD Feb 20 p 17). AT&T unveiled its offer hours after the Verizon announcement. “We had to,” he said. “We're not going to allow our high-end customers to go somewhere else on the basis of price.”