AT&T boosts dividend, expanding TV plans

[RandallA]

AT&T Boosts Dividend, Plans Buyback, Says TV Service to Be Available to 30M Customers by 2010


NEW YORK (AP) -- AT&T Inc. on Tuesday raised its dividend 12.7 percent, announced a share buyback and set a long-term target for its TV service, which is delivered over phone lines, saying it will be available to 30 million customers by 2010.

The TV announcement by chief executive Randall Stephenson reinforces AT&T's commitment to the service, known as U-verse. Recent news reports said the San Antonio-based company was in talks to acquire satellite TV broadcaster EchoStar Corp., which would have given the company a different route to reach customers.

Read more:

AT&T Boosts Dividend, Expanding TV Plans: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

 

[RandallA]

Does this mean that AT&T will not be buying Echostar? Sounds to me like they're comitting to their Uverse service.

 

[Poke]

Yeah I think since AT&T is spending money on their own TV Service and with Dish starting this new IPTV Service that they will offer to Telcos and Cable Companies. I think right now there a chance it will not happen. I would like to see the local cable company here get on Dish IPTV service due to the local cable company here is really bad.

 

[Poke]

Here more info


AT&T Beefs Up Core Network - 40Gbit/second upgrades continue... - dslreports.com


AT&T continues to upgrade their MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) backbone to 40Gbit/second, today announcing they've selected the Cisco Carrier Routing System (CRS-1) for upgrades. According to the company, traffic over their network has doubled during the past two years, and they claim they've lit the nation's first coast-to-coast network connections over new-generation IP/Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology. From a company press release:

The new-generation backbone network carries data at 40 Gbps without the need for multiplexing (combining multiple digital signals into a single optical channel). AT&T has deployed 40 Gbps (or OC-768) technology on more than 50,000 wavelength miles of its U.S. IP/MPLS backbone network to date, connecting major U.S. cities with the fastest available transport technology. This includes 18,000 miles of recently enhanced optical ultralong haul routes capable of eventually carrying customer voice and data traffic at speeds up to 100 Gbps with minimized latency (packet travel time). By year's end, more than 40 percent of the IP traffic carried over the company's backbone network will ride on this new-generation platform.

According to the company, they completed field trials with 100 Gbps transport back in 2006. Simon Zelingher, VP of AT&T Research Labs, recently stated his company will need to upgrade to a 100-Gbit/s backbone by the end of the decade in order to keep up with bandwidth demand driven by video and multimedia applications.


According to AT&T, the company's backbone carries more than 13.4 petabytes of data traffic on an average business day over 547,000 worldwide fiber route miles

 

[dishcomm]

Does this mean that AT&T will not be buying Echostar? Sounds to me like they're comitting to their Uverse service.

I have a question. Is the U-verse and other Fiber To Home (FTH) systems limited the same way DSL services are? If so I see the logic in AT&T looking at a satellite company. Reason? Because FTH probably will never be offered in rural areas. SO would it not be a wise move on AT&T's pat to have shall I say, all of it's bases covered?

 

[RandallA]

I have a question. Is the U-verse and other Fiber To Home (FTH) systems limited the same way DSL services are? If so I see the logic in AT&T looking at a satellite company. Reason? Because FTH probably will never be offered in rural areas. SO would it not be a wise move on AT&T's pat to have shall I say, all of it's bases covered?

That's how most of us see it. Uverse will NOT be available to everybody because of the technology limitations and that's where they can use Satellite TV.

 

[Two Good]

Are you sure ATT will not be able to provide U-Verse to all, or most of their customers? Early in 2007, ATT announced that all of their customers in Texas would be able to have DSL service by the end of 2007. I did not believe they would be able to do this, but I now believe they may very well have accomplished this. My daughter is an ATT customer in a rural area of Texas. I never thought she would have DSL because of the remote location, but in September, 2007 that became a reality.

 

[dishcomm]

Are you sure ATT will not be able to provide U-Verse to all, or most of their customers? Early in 2007, ATT announced that all of their customers in Texas would be able to have DSL service by the end of 2007. I did not believe they would be able to do this, but I now believe they may very well have accomplished this. My daughter is an ATT customer in a rural area of Texas. I never thought she would have DSL because of the remote location, but in September, 2007 that became a reality.

One thing I know for sure is the Telcos are not under the same rules as cable with regard to distribution of FTH services. For example ,don't expect to see FTH service to be fed to low income areas. Additionally I would not think AT&T or Verizon to waste their time trying to get FTH service to rural areas either.
Yes some may view this as redlining. But the costs on this are too high to distribute the servioce into areas with very low potential buy rates. FOC systems ar every expensive to build and maintain. I have a friend who is a network supervisor for Sprint. We were talikng the other day about a job he went to where and excavator had cut a major fiber cable that had been located and marked. He told me that damage was going to cost $500,000 when it is all said and done.
The point is a fiber network is nothing to be trifled with. The costs are so high that it would be foolish for atelco to run FOC throughout their entire service area. It's just not feasable

 

[kovach]

Are you sure ATT will not be able to provide U-Verse to all, or most of their customers? Early in 2007, ATT announced that all of their customers in Texas would be able to have DSL service by the end of 2007. I did not believe they would be able to do this, but I now believe they may very well have accomplished this. My daughter is an ATT customer in a rural area of Texas. I never thought she would have DSL because of the remote location, but in September, 2007 that became a reality.

There's much more equipment to be installed at a much higher cost for U-verse vs. DSL. I don't see them offering U-verse everywhere.

 

[tampabay]

I have a question. Is the U-verse and other Fiber To Home (FTH) systems limited the same way DSL services are? If so I see the logic in AT&T looking at a satellite company. Reason? Because FTH probably will never be offered in rural areas. SO would it not be a wise move on AT&T's pat to have shall I say, all of it's bases covered?

Uverse (FTTN not FTTP/FTTH) makes sense for them in the bigger cities they are in. Yes, there are distance limitations, I believe they say you have to be within 2500 ft of the uverse box to be serviced. It allows them to reach all of their customers, in the big city, and not have to deal with the "weather issues" that the local cable company would advertise against. It's rather cost prohibitive for AT&T to roll it out very quickly or to all service areas, as they're finding adoption to be slow in the areas they've already hit.

Satellite is a better offering for AT&T outside of the major market cities, but not at the cost of acquiring the company. Just a simple partnership, as they have now. And imo, potentially switching to D* if they get any more exclusive sports packages.