U-verse comes to Chicago suburbs

In its largest U-verse rollout to date, AT&T’s IPTV offering surrounds the Windy City

Residents in most Chicago suburbs now have another option for video, as AT&T today announced it will begin installing its IPTV service, U-verse, in parts of 175 northeastern suburbs. This Illinois launch marks the largest U-verse rollout to date in any AT&T market.

Deployment in Chicago area suburbs has been delayed due in large part to the technical problems the service faced nationwide as well as many regulatory battles in Illinois municipalities. An Illinois law enacted last June, however, now allows new video providers to invest in Illinois and compete against incumbent cablecos. As a result, AT&T has a statewide cable TV franchise, granted last October.

AT&T's network upgrade was also met with resistance in a lot of Illinois’ suburbs due to the large amount of work it would require. The telco sued the municipalities of Roselle, Wheaton, Carpentersville, Wood Dale, Roselle, Geneva, North Aurora and Itasca for thwarting its progress, a move some thought would hurt the company in the long run. Getting into the Chicago suburban market took hundreds of meetings with different towns to address individual standards and approval processes.

Just three months after receiving clearance from the ICC, the launch will be characterized by “controlled aggressiveness” and swiftness in coming to market, according to Steve Mitchell, AT&T Illinois general manager and vice president. The company is still working with some communities to get permits to begin deployment. Mitchell would not say when to expect U-verse to make its way into the downtown area but did confirm that AT&T is currently working closely with the city to make the service available as quickly as possible.

The IPTV platform is an alternative to cable and satellite offerings, as well as AT&T’s other Advanced TV services, which include its DSL and DISH Network satellite TV partnership. However, consumers who already subscribe to this service will have to pay a termination fee to switch to U-verse. The standalone IPTV service starts at $44 to $154 a month, with a $10 charge for high definition.

AT&T offers 40 HD channels, more than its cable competitors, Mitchell said, but its often disputed fiber-to-the-node strategy means that while a screen can show four TV channels simultaneously, only one will be HD. Mitchell said AT&T is confident that FTTN is the right technology for IPTV deployments, especially considering anticipated future enhancements to the bandwidth capacity. Since the infrastructure was already in place in the ground, the service can be provided at cheaper rates than building a new network would require, he added.

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