AT&T claim their IPTV is not cable TV December 19, 2006
Posted by Al in : interesting,Internet , trackbackThis is an interesting article on how AT&T plan to upgrade their network using Fibre to their Nodes and then co-ax to the customer premises, and how the cities they are planning to upgrade are fighting this upgrade due to America’s wonderful lawsuit culture. Fibre to the Node is far cheaper than Fibre to the Home, which is how Verizon plan to go, and can give speeds of above 150Mb/s using DOCSIS3.0, or an equivalent format. But AT&T didn’t expect the cities they are rolling this out in to fight the rollout – the cities claim they had to to avoid lawsuits from rival cable TV companies. The problem arises because if AT&T were to just upgrade their telecommunications to their customer they could basically do what they want, as they are allowed automatic improvement plans. However they have announced they will be rolling out IPTV over this network, which then makes them a TV company and so subject to the laws that govern cable TV companies. One of those laws is that any network improvement has to be rolled out across an entire community, and cannot be just provided to some residents (ie the wealthier neighbourhoods). AT&T claim this doesn’t apply, the cities, and their lawyers, say it does – a court will need to provide a ruling before any rollout can go ahead. I bet AT&T wish they had never mentioned IPTV now – too late now though.
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