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AT&T U-verse TV non-update update for Orange County

March 31st, 2010, 11:30 am by

Readers searching for an alternative TV service have been asking for months: Any updates on the AT&T U-verse roll out?

It’s been 8 months since last summer’s series detailing the company’s decision to stop pursuing 7 Orange County cities, including Cypress, Dana Point, Irvine, Lake Forest, Newport Beach, San Clemente and Tustin. AT&T ran into roadblocks with the city governments to install large utility boxes above ground. The cities wanted underground structures. AT&T decided it wasn’t worth the time or money.

So, what’s happened since? AT&T just got back to me with an answer and you’re probably not going to like it.

“No updates to report on the OC cities,” said Katie Keating, with AT&T.

More on the U-verse impasse

> More on U-verse Impasse<

Keep in mind, U-verse has expanded tremendously in the past year. According to the company’s 2009 earnings report, it doubled the number of U-verse customers to 2.1 million and it still plans to make the service available to 30 million by the end of next year.

AT&T continues to market to new customers in Aliso Viejo, Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, La Habra, La Palma, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Mission Viejo, Orange, Placentia, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Stanton, Villa Park, Westminster, and Yorba Linda.

But like the other newish TV service, Verizon FiOS, there have been no expansions into new cities. This week, the Associated Press reported Verizon is winding down FiOS expansion. We already knew this was happening in Orange County last year and the company confirmed as much just a few months ago.  If you can’t get FiOS today, you probably won’t be getting it for a very, very long time. Sounds like the same is true with U-verse, at least for the 7 cities previously mentioned.

There is still some hope that Orange County cities will get fiber Internet, if not TV service. Google’s recent pitch to help out cities build fiber networks did attract some local attention. Fullerton, Mission Viejo and Anaheim all made a bid (read earlier story: “Orange County doesn’t go crazy for Google’s 1 gbps fiber Internet“).

More on U-verse:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • | 25 Comments »

Psssst: Digital cable TV is cheaper than analog cable

December 17th, 2009, 9:22 am by

Time Warner Cable signHere’s a little known fact about cable TV service from Time Warner Cable: Digital cable is cheaper than analog.

In Orange County, Time Warner’s digital cable package includes 200 channels, on-demand video and one special tier of channels (movies, variety, sports, etc.) for $50.95. This is the published rate, not a special promotion. You will need to rent a digital cable box for $6/month.

Basic analog cable, which is $55.50 to $58 per month depending on what city you live in, offers much less. That number shrunk this week as Time Warner moved some of these analog channels (ABC Family, The Weather Channel, TruTV) to digital to make room for more digital services for the majority of its customers. Time Warner has said that 80 percent of its Southern California customers are digital subscribers. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • | 48 Comments »

AT&T hands $328k check to O.C. Boy Scouts

September 22nd, 2009, 11:39 pm by

Orange County Council, Boy Scouts of AmericaIt’s nice to know that Orange County’s youth is benefiting from the company that will sell you service for an iPhone.

AT&T presented a $328,460 check to members of the Orange County Council, Boy Scouts of America just before the Los Angeles Angels got ready to pound the New York Yankees in Anaheim.

The money was raised during the 11th annual AT&T Classic golf tournament. Proceeds each year go to Scoutreach, a program to help disadvantaged children participate in Boy Scouts. It also helps the Council’s Learning for Life program, which builds programs to help schools and youth organizations.

Since its 1998 inception, the tournament has raised $3.2 million in net proceeds — all of which has gone to the Orange County organization.

AT&T donates $325,000 to O.C.'s Boy Scouts.

Photo from AT&T: AT&T’s Matt Cave (third from left) and Richard Porras (second from left) present the Orange County Council, Boy Scouts of America Les Baron (third from right), Ken Camp (fourth from right) and Orange County Boy Scouts Rory Strong (second from right) and Kenny Coulter (right) of Tustin Troop 243, alongside Angels player Matt Palmer, with a donation of $328,460 at an Angels Baseball game in Anaheim, Calif., September 22, 2009.  The funds will provide local youth a chance to participate in character-building and leadership opportunities.

“Without AT&T’s help and the fundraising efforts of this annual golf tournament and silent auction, these programs would be unable to sustain themselves, leaving more than 32,000 youth without the character-building and leadership opportunities that the Orange County Council provides,” Les Baron, scout executive, The Orange County Council, Boy Scouts of America, said in a statement.

Posted in: news • • • • • • | 5 Comments »

AT&T explains why it can’t build its TV service underground

August 18th, 2009, 7:40 am by

Where is AT&T's U-verse service? Readers: This is part of an ongoing series of updates on what happened to the AT&T U-verse rollout in Orange County. The company said in July 2009 that it was halting further expansion in seven O.C. cities. I’m talking to each city so keep checking back for updates! This story, in particular, is the long promised update on why AT&T can’t build its U-verse TV technology underground, as every city prefers.

When AT&T said it would stop pursuing expansion of its highly anticipated U-verse TV and Internet service in seven Orange County cities (Cypress, Dana Point, Irvine, Lake Forest, Newport Beach, San Clemente and Tustin), readers blamed the cities. Why would a city not want to offer residents another TV option?

Closeup

U-verse box in Brea

Most of the cities responded, saying, no, they haven’t rejected AT&T U-verse. Rather, they’re waiting for their laundry list of requirements to be fulfilled or at least answers to their multiple questions. Cities want AT&T to build the large U-verse utility boxes underground. Otherwise, cities believe they’ll be deluged with ugliness complaints or spray-can wielding vandals.

AT&T tells me it has responded to all concerns among the cities. Multiple times.

“Over the past two years, we’ve met with cities repeatedly and answered the same questions on the same issues,” said an exasperated H. Gordon Diamond, with AT&T’s public affairs, after reading some of the responses from the cities.

Cities have nitpicked AT&T, some asking for the company to pre-engineer each location (which takes 50 hours a pop, says Diamond), others putting requiring a list of “standard” conditions be met. While some cities say they just care more than those cities, AT&T says this is holding up progress and keeping an alternative TV service out of reach of residents.

So, let’s look at AT&T’s response to the biggest issue: AT&T says it can’t build these utility cabinets underground.

And why not?

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • | 24 Comments »

Tustin’s turn: Why AT&T U-verse isn’t happening here yet

July 13th, 2009, 11:38 am by

Where is AT&T's U-verse service? Readers: This is part of an ongoing series of updates on what happened to the AT&T U-verse rollout in Orange County. The company recently said that it was halting new activity in seven O.C. cities. So keep checking back for updates!

UPDATE, 7/24/09: Added comment from AT&T’s H. Gordon Diamond regarding U-verse utility boxes and defective batteries. See below.

Efforts to offer Tustin residents AT&T’s U-verse TV service remain in limbo as the city and AT&T sort out their differences. But limbo could become eternity because the city believes it’s waiting for AT&T’s responses to ordinance requests, while AT&T has decided to stop its pursuit of 93 permits after more than a year of effort. Tustin, like five other cities I’ve interviewed, offered one primary reason it wasn’t keen on the project:  The city wants the boxes built underground. 

But underground isn’t the only issue for Tustin and below-ground utility boxes aren’t mandatory. Some of these utility cabinets have already been built above ground, including one in front of C. E. Utt Middle School on Browning Avenue. The city has other issues it wants resolved before greenlighting the rest of the project, said Elizabeth Binsack, Tustin’s communicty development director, who invited me to view the presentation given to AT&T about AT&T and given to the Planning Commission and City Council.  

“I gotta tell you, the sites we looked at in our walk, some were conflicting with line of sight, some were in the spot of trees and fire hydrants. I don’t think they looked at those sites at all. We did,” Binsack said.

 Other issues:

AT&T's application to install 93 U-verse TV utility cabinets around the city included locations like underneath this tree. City officials stand with a mock U-verse utility box. Photo courtesy of Tustin.

AT&T's plan to install 93 utility cabinets in Tustin included underneath this tree. City officials stand next to mock AT&T box. Photo from city of Tustin.

1. AT&T’s unwillingness to move these boxes to less obtrusive areas, such as the back of the park instead of smack dab in the middle, or off the edge of the sidewalk and into the landscaping (see photo on right and below). ”We haven’t heard back from AT&T,” she said.  

2. U-verse isn’t as advanced as Verizon FiOS, which instead of offering fiber optic technology to the middle of a neighborhood, builds the fiber all the way to the house. (“What if we end up with 93 boxes that are obselete?” Binsack wondered.) Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • | 14 Comments »

AT&T U-verse comes to a halt in Irvine, 6 other O.C. cities

July 6th, 2009, 12:14 pm by

AT&T U-verse

Major correction on this post, which earlier was titled, “AT&T U-verse TV expanding to Cypress, Dana Point, elsewhere.” 

In fact, H. Gordon Diamon, AT&T’s public affairs representative, said that it has been so difficult to get permits in seven Orange County cities that the company has stopped applying for them.

“Specifically, the seven cities that I mentioned to you are not issuing us any permits so we have, in fact, stopped submitting them,” he said. Earlier, he said that AT&T U-verse was “working to secure the required permits for the upgrade” in these seven cities:

The U-verse impasse
  1. Irvine
  2. Cypress
  3. Dana Point
  4. Lake Forest
  5. Newport Beach
  6. San Clemente
  7. Tustin

The company still offers service in five of those seven cities — to all those lucky enough to get it before AT&T ran up against local bureaucracy. Two other cities — Cypress and Dana Point — are new to the list of cities AT&T was targeting. That’s too bad for those residents who were seeking an alternative TV service.

UPDATE: I’m checking with every city to see what happened in regards to AT&T. One has told me that it’s due to aesthetics but it hasn’t officially denied AT&T’s request. Watch for a full report on this blog soon. Meanwhile, I’m also responding to comments below.

Here’s the original post, corrected as necessary with changes in bold and red:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • | 39 Comments »

Verizon improves mobile phone quality in Santa Ana, Tustin

March 27th, 2009, 12:23 pm by

AT&T isn’t alone in improving cell coverage in Orange County. Verizon Wireless wants to add that it, too, is constantly adding more cell sites here. 

The new O.C. locations improve 3G wireless coverage in specific parts of Santa Ana and Tustin: 

  • Santa Ana: McFadden Avenue from Euclid Street to Fairview Road and on Harbor Boulevard from Edinger Avenue to Hazard Avenue
  • Tustin: Downtown Tustin and East Tustin, including the Tustin Civic Center. Also improves service along Irvine Boulevard and Newport Avenue.

Increased 3G coverage means more capacity for calls, e-mails, multimedia messaging and Web access.

Verizon said it invested $600 million in California last year to enhance service and coverage. Comparably, AT&T (the only other company that has released this information) said its total capital investment in its network in California from 2006 to 2008 was “nearly $7.9 billion.”

Hello Sprint? T-Mobile? I have requests in to both companies asking for an O.C. update. Stay tuned…

More on cell-phones: Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local cell phone services. Previous stories on new cell sites in Orange County:

Posted in: Cell phones • • • • • • | 1 Comment »

Digital TV transition delayed to June – pretty much

February 4th, 2009, 2:08 pm by

The long wait to switch to digital TV broadcasts will now be a bit longer after the U.S. House of Representatives voted today to postpone the switch to June 12, according to an Associated Press report.

The bill, which was approved by the Senate last week, needs only President Barack Obama’s signature to become a law. Obama has said he will sign it.

For the majority of the nation already ready for digital TV broadcasts, the delay still impacts us all. The pending law will tap into government funds to provide more discounts on digital converter boxes for analog TV viewers. Also, this means four more months of commercials, stories and coverage of the digital TV transition.

According to AP, the House voted 264-158 to delay. Last week, the House rejected a similar bill because it failed to get a two-thirds majority as a special fast-track vote. However, today’s action required a simple majority. The Senate approved the delay early last week.

In Orange County and Los Angeles, 9.5 percent of TV-watching households aren’t prepared, according to a December report from The Nielsen Company, the TV research company. Approximately 535,000 households, or 9.5 percent, of folks in the region do not have a digital television, converter box or cable or satellite service.

However, the pending law will allow TV stations that are prepared to switch to make the switch anyway. 

At Tustin-based Trinity Broadcast Network, which operates three-dozen TV stations nationwide, the religious TV network will likely switch to digital in phases, said Paul Crouch Jr., TBN’s chief of staff.  The cost of maintaining analog broadcasts costs the network $40,000 a month per station in energy bills.

“We’ll probably go market by market and just shut off analog as we see fit,” he said. “In other markets, like Columbus, Ohio, that has 30 percent over-the-air viewership because there are a lot of homes in rural areas.”

TBN will probably keep its analog broadcasts in Ohio and Dallas through June, and continue to broadcast educational information about the switch even though it’s been showing educational spots for two years.

“If you’re not ready on February 18, I’m not sure June 12 is going to make all that much difference,” he said.

The National Association of Broadcasters, the TV industry group that said earlier this month that the nation is ready, now backs the delay. In a statement, it welcomed the new deadline and pledged its support to continue educating consumers who haven’t converted or are confused. It also supports fixing the government-funded coupon program, which ran out of money earlier this month.

“America’s broadcasters, which have spent the past decade preparing for this historic transition, are ready to make a successful switch,” said David Rehr, NAB President and CEO.

NAB, which hosts the DTVAnswers.com web site, is already planning new television spots to promote the June 12 deadline.

From the web:

Nearly a Fifth of Stations Will Make Digital TV Switch Anyway (U.S. News & World Report)

More at The Gadgetress’ “Guide to Digital TV transition.” Recent headlines:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • | 12 Comments »

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