In the Spotlight: Jeff Weber, AT&T

At a panel discussion on the future of video services at the NXTcomm trade show in Chicago last Tuesday, Jeff Weber, AT&T’s vice president of video products, fielded questions on a variety of IPTV topics, bringing his own experience to bear as a telco video veteran.

On telco video: Years ago I was a Southwestern Bell guy. We struck an agreement with a fledgling satellite service provider called DirecTV and trialed the service in Little Rock, Ark.; Enid, Okla.; and San Antonio, Texas. We sold more in those three markets than anyone else did nationally. We were the best agent DirecTV had. I learned something incredibly important during that short trial: Customers absolutely want to buy video and TV from the phone company, from a brand they trust. As we got into this other crazy thing we started called U-verse, I knew, because I’d seen it, that we could sell video, because AT&T is a trusted brand. We’ve now announced well north of 40,000 [U-Verse] customers, we’re installing 600 a day, and toward the end of the year it will be 10,000 a week. We’re in 21 markets now and continuing to accelerate. We always knew we could sell TV if we had a good product. We have a really good product.

On competitors: They are very aggressive in terms of slashing prices. They know where we’re building and where we launch, and they hit it hard before after and during.

On revenue-generating applications: How you make money on each individual application may vary and, in some cases, is unclear. At least those apps are out there. For some apps, the money makes sense for everybody. It’s not clear to me that we can count on incremental revenue from an [individual] application in the business plan. Remote Web access is used a ton. Can I charge a quarter a month for that? A buck a month? It doesn’t feel like there’s a ton of money in the apps themselves. Do they decrease churn, increase customer satisfaction, etc.—they do a ton of good. Are there apps we’re going to be able to charge for? Yes. I don’t know what they look like. I don’t think it’s [similar to] me charging you a buck for caller ID and another buck for call waiting. I don’t think that’s what the world looks like.

On fast channel change: I can’t sell fast channel change. I can tell you how great it is all day long. It’s a great big yawner for everybody. But get it in your living room, and it’s a whole different discussion. You’ll tell your neighbors how great it is and how you’d never go back.

On who owns the IPTV customer: Microsoft is the underlying software platform. There are a series of other providers, like Cisco. But who owns the customer? That’s another way of saying, ‘When there’s a problem, who does the customer call?’ If Cisco wants to take those calls, we’re open to a discussion on that. [smiles] The service provider provides the service, hence the name.