SkyFILES: Think IPTV is a Joke?
The numbers surprised some … and may have had the harshest critics of the big IPTV product scratching their heads.
AT&T reported this week that its U-verse TV service netted 148,000 new customers in the first quarter, reaching 379,000 at the close of the three-month period. For comparison, the IPTV-based offering ended 2007 with 231,000 customers.
That's a rather decent gain for the video service. Better than decent, maybe.
And the continued growth could've confounded those who have had nothing but disparaging comments about the IP-based video platform.
As Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research put it, "although the numbers remain too small to matter much, U-Verse does continue to ramp, and somewhat more quickly than expected, and perhaps enough to finally quiet the claims that it simply ‘doesn't work.'"
Satellite TV remains a key part of AT&T's video strategy, with about 2.3 million DBS customers enrolled through the telco's efforts as of the end of March. When combining U-verse and small dish numbers, AT&T had more than 2.6 million video customers at the close of the first quarter.
While satellite remains a key component of AT&T's video strategy, U-verse is becoming a competitive issue that the DBS companies must have under close scrutiny. Meanwhile, those critics of IPTV must be reassessing their views of the technology.
Think IPTV is a joke? Think again.
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