U-verse TV discovered by 1.3 million people
April 22nd, 2009, 4:18 pm · 6 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
Creak, creak … that’s the sound of AT&T’s U-verse TV service’s sluggish roll out. The company announced that it added 284,000 TV subscribers during the first three months of 2009. That’s 3,156 homes a day, if you count weekends.
While that number may sound low to anyone who’s been itching for 2+ years to order the TV service, that number is growing each quarter, according to AT&T’s quarterly earnings, out today. The number is almost double the 148,000 subscribers added during first quarter last year, and it’s up from the 264,000 added in the fourth quarter of 2008.
For the whole company, AT&T made $3.1 billion on $30.6 billion in sales. Both figures were down from a year ago. Read the complete release HERE.
While the company’s other hot business really helped out, the smaller U-verse division was given a lot of ink in the financial report. AT&T is really pushing U-verse because it realizes that consumers are desperate for another option when it comes to TV service. As of the end of March 2009, U-verse TV service had 1.3 million customers.
The country’s other telecom-based TV service, Verizon’s FiOS, also has a seemingly slow rollout, albeit one that is moving faster than U-verse. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Verizon added 303,000 new FiOS TV customers, the highest ever for the company. By the end of 2008, it had 1.9 million TV customers. FiOS, unfortunately, also has limited availability in Orange County. See the list of cities HERE.
In places that U-verse is available (see the Orange County cities HERE), not everybody is convinced they need to switch. AT&T said penetration rates are in the mid-teens in areas that have been marketed to for at least 18 months. However, 50 percent of the new customers who sign up purchase the largest video package.
Overall, however, a greater portion of AT&T’s TV customers — approximately 2.2 million — are still opting for the cheaper DirecTV service, which is typically bundled with AT&T’s DSL and/or phone service. My guess is that this is because U-verse is not available in most parts of the country.
Recent U-Verse and FiOS news (also check Gadgetress Guide to local TV services):
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I got it and it works fairly well. Doesn’t have some of the nice pause/view second tuner features that the TW service had though…
I’ve had AT&T U-Verse for several months. I switched from Time Warner.
I am very happy with U-Verse. Time Warner’s service was horrible and more expensive.
I’m lovin’ my FREE digital TV! Picture quality is perfect and it’s free. Anyone surprised at all the cable tv offers in your mail? I think they are worried people actually try digital tv. The more people who do the more would leave cable tv and the $80 monthly bill!
At least you can get U-Verse! If it weren’t for DirecTV, we’d still be stuck with Crime Warner. However, I’m in an area where AT&T still doesn’t provide DSL, so I presume that we may be next in line for U-Verse, if only to get high-speed internet service from someone other than CW.
Gadgetress – any futher word from AT&T on their rollout plans for U-Verse?
Hey Rickster, let’s be honest??? The over the air digital broadcasts do offer a lot of extra channels I agree. Aside from the primary HD transmissions by local channels the rest seem to be religious or a rainbow of different languages. Maybe that works for you but I don’t believe it’s a serious competitor to cable or satellite. One thing I’ll swear by is the HD quality of over the air fare. I have DISH and love it. I hated Time Warner and gave up on AT&T coming to my neighborhood. But for the heck of it I bought an indoor antennae to watch the Lakers and American Idol on PinP. The DISH image on local channels is great but the antennae image in HD is incredibly crisp and detailed. I was amazed.
Ordered universe twice – first time installer did not have the required tools and could not install. 2nd time the installer did not show up. I know one other person who also stayed home from work and the installer did not show. I will stick with a competitor.