AT&T Homezone, the previously announced hybrid DSL/DBS service based on 2Wire Inc. technology, is finally available in select markets, the company announced on Wednesday. The Homezone concept was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January of 2005, at which time AT&T Inc. said it would start delivering the service in mid 2005. But it took until today for AT&T to publicly introduce Homezone in its first markets – which include the state of Ohio as well as San Antonio, Texas. The company didn’t comment on what delayed the initial launch schedule of Homezone.
The service, which AT&T says will roll out across the rest of its broadband footprint in the coming months, combines AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet; AT&T | DISH Network satellite television; and the home PC via a single receiver. Customers can select from several broadband speeds and satellite TV packages, then purchase Homezone service for an additional $9.99 per month.
Homezone features digital video recording, movies on demand, and photo and music sharing and storage. To be more specific, at the CES show in 2005, SBC Communications Inc. (as it was known prior to combining with AT&T Corp. to become AT&T Inc.) and 2Wire employees demonstrated and discussed how Homezone would allow customers to upload photos from their digital cameras or PCs to the 250-gig 2Wire home gateway; that way, individuals or groups can view pictures on a TV screen and store a photo album on the home gateway. They also said the home gateway and a Wi-Fi router/modem from 2Wire would allow users to draw various media – whether video, images or music – from any PC in the house. And they said messaging would be part of the mix – with caller ID and e-mail to be displayed as pop-ups on users’ TV screens. Finally, they discussed how consumers would be able to access content from and program the 2Wire box using any Web-connected computer -- even computers outside the house.
AT&T on Wednesday said that future enhancements to Homezone are expected to include a high-definition version of the receiver; new music and video content from content providers Yahoo! and Akimbo; and the ability to do DVR programming and use other remote access features through a Cingular wireless phone.
While Homezone has been a widely anticipated service from AT&T, the company has long made clear that it is a sidebar to AT&T’s even more hyped, fiber-based Project Lightspeed architecture and the related U-Verse branded video, voice and data services to be delivered over it. After earlier amending the launch date for Lightspeed, AT&T recently shifted the Lightspeed network in San Antonio into commercial gear and promised to deliver U-Verse services over Lightspeed networks (which will be based on FTTC/VDSL in existing markets and FTTH in greenfield deployments) in 15 to 20 additional markets by the end of this year.
Still, there’s a fair amount of speculation in the industry about just how dedicated AT&T will be in the long term to the Lightspeed initiative (http://www.xchangemag.com/articles/671feature03.html). For example, research and institutional banking firm ThinkEquity Partners LLC, recently wrote that it believes AT&T’s IPTV strategy and rollout schedule will be scaled back in terms of homes passed over the next two to three years. “The target had been 18 million homes in three years,” writes ThinkEquity. “Instead, we believe AT&T will put greater emphasis on its Homezone joint venture with EchoStar Satellite LLC. We believe the fundamental reason AT&T is likely to do this, is that it will realize it will need a lot more bandwidth to be competitive with all-wired IPTV when competing against cable TV and satellite companies.”
2Wire Inc. www.2Wire.com
AT&T Inc. www.att.com
EchoStar Satellite LLC, DISH Network www.dishnetwork.com
