Ed Whitacre and the new AT&T are betting big that they can succeed where the old AT&T failed — offering bundled voice, video and data. The high-flying failure wound up making Comcast bigger and turning AT&T into a long-distance company. Now what’s left of AT&T is being paired with SBC and the video emphasis is on creating a new internet delivery channel, not buying up expensive cable ops. Estimated time before the new services reach half of the current SBC-AT&T 36 million households: nearly three years. A controlled launch starts in San Antonio next month; questions are still being raised about the Microsoft software performance but both companies inssist the issues have been resolved.
AT&T execs told the WSJ the company can deliver 1,000 or more channels of TV over the internet within 18 months. Other video plans include targeted TV advertising, TV via mobile phone and thousands of hours of VOD. Yahoo has been working with SBC and will work with the new company on search technology and advertising, according to the Journal.
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