SBC COMMUNICATIONS ISN’T THE ONLY U.S. telco hot on Microsoft Corp.’s IPTV Edition platform. BellSouth Corp. last month revealed it’s been working with Microsoft on IPTV as well.
While BellSouth is not as far along as SBC, which recently committed more than $400 million over 10 years for Microsoft’s IPTV solution, the southeastern telco is planning a technical trial of IPTV with Microsoft.
BellSouth plans to employ new DSL technologies, including ADSL2+ and copper pair bonding, and its 5 million miles of fiber cabling, to trial a video offer during the first half of this year.
The telco also will continue to expand its FTTC network, which passes 1 million homes, to an additional 180,000 customers in 2005.
BellSouth is completing testing of IPTV hardware and software within its labs and later will expand its trial to set-top boxes within customers’ homes selected for the trial. BellSouth then will evaluate further deployment based upon results of the trial.
