NEW ORLEANS – Although TV Everywhere plans and fancy-schmancy video applications may be all the rage in pay TV circles these days, they may all go for naught if they’re not built around the foundation of strong core video services.
So says Jeff Weber, vice president of U-verse and video strategy for AT&T. Speaking here at the annual TelcoTV conference earlier this week, Weber warned fellow service providers that multi-screen video will not be the pay TV industry’s salvation if the basic video service is still a loser.
Multi-screen services are "sexy and important," but they are "not important unless there's a TV service to wrap [them] around," Weber declared in a keynote address to the conference late Tuesday afternoon. "It begins with the [core] TV service."
Despite such words of warning, AT&T is showering loads of attention and resources on these sexier services, as Weber made quite clear in his address. To begin with, he cited U-verse's multi-view app, which enables Chicago-area U-verse TV subscribers to view Chicago Cubs games from various camera angles.
Weber also boasted about U-verse's new mobile integration, which allows customers to stream and "sideload" content (just on smartphones so far), as well as program and control their DVRs remotely using a common user interface. In addition, he pointed to U-verse Online, a slightly older multi-screen version that can stream up to 180,000 TV shows, movies and clips to PCs and laptops.
Further, Weber highlighted AT&T's new partnership with Microsoft Corp., which brings the U-verse experience to the Xbox 360 console. He also played up a new series of social networking apps that AT&T has fused into U-verse to drive higher usage and foster greater customer engagement.
Following AT&T’s earlier announcement that it will soon introduce a new wireless IPTV set-top from Cisco Systems that relies on Wi-Fi rather than a traditional cable coax link, Weber explained the drivers behind the move. Most notably, he explained that the new wireless set-top, unlike a legacy set-top, can be drop-shipped to homes. As a result, AT&T should be able to pare back its operating expenses by sharply reducing truck rolls and install times. "We'll never have to send a tech to the house," he predicted.
Specifically, plans call for AT&T to offer a product that combines the set-top with a Wi-Fi access point, both of which are part of Cisco's Videoscape portfolio. AT&T aims to roll out the new Wi-Fi set-tops in all U-verse markets beginning early next week.
Weber confirmed press reports that the new wireless receiver will not transcode video into formats that can be displayed on IP-connected tablets, PCs and other mobile devices linked to a customers’ home Wi-Fi network. But, he said, the idea of supporting such an app in the home is "in the forefront of our thinking. … It's an architecture and efficiency discussion."
Similarly, AT&T is interested in delivering some kind of U-verse service to a new breed of connected TVs, albeit with an important caveat. "It doesn't make sense in the U-verse footprint to deliver a partial service" to smart TVs, Weber said.
The first reports about the new device appeared in March when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved Cisco's Wi-Fi-capable ISB7005 set-top. AT&T ended the third quarter with nearly 3.6 million U-verse TV subs, making it now the eighth largest pay TV provider in North America..
Alan Breznick is a Toronto-based senior analyst at Heavy Reading, part of the Light Reading Communications Network at UBM TechWeb and covered the Telco TV conference for Cartt.ca.
