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By Sanford Nowlin, San Antonio Express-News
Mar. 23--San Antonio-based AT&T Inc. said Thursday it will offer its U-verse television service to subscribers via cell phones and personal computers as it heats up its rivalry with cable providers such as Time Warner.
The nation's biggest phone company said it will offer U-verse subscribers about 30 channels through a relationship with mobile content provider MobiTV Inc. It's making the PC service -- called OnTheGo -- available this week for prices starting at $10 a month and will roll out its wireless version at a later date.
"Customers want to be able to access entertainment when they're away from their living rooms," spokesman Wes Warnock said. "This is one way to do that." The initial channel lineup will include Fox Sports, the Weather Channel and FUSE music television, among others, but not premium channels such as HBO and Showtime. Warnock said the company is likely to expand its channel lineup in coming months.
AT&T has spent more than $4 billion upgrading its networks so it can expand U-verse, which operates over its broadband Internet network, to 19 million homes by the end of 2008. It wants to compete with cable carriers such as Time Warner and Comcast Corp. that have aggressively rolled out phone service and chipped away at its revenue.
AT&T struck a deal last year with Emeryville, Calif.-based MobiTV, which transmits TV and music to mobile phone users. The deal announced Thursday expands that relationship, Warnock said.
Analysts said AT&T's OnTheGo may help it differentiate U-verse standard cable service by blurring the line between consumers' three screens: TV, PC and cell phone. But, they add, cable rivals are likely to introduce similar products as more consumers demand not just to "time-shift" as they do with their digital video recorders but to "place-shift" as well.
"Place-shifting is watching TV with whatever you can get your hands on, as long as you have a broadband connection," said Patrick Comack, an analyst for Zachary Investment Research in Miami. "I think everybody is ultimately going to want to let their subscribers do that."
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