AT&T whips up some Southern U-Verse cooking

To battle fierce competition from aggressive incumbent cable operator Comcast, AT&T has launched its suite of U-Verse TV, Internet and voice in its Jackson, Miss. market. With the new service, AT&T says it will offer more than 110 HD channels, in addition to IP-enabled interactive features including on-screen weather and news updates. AT&T's efforts in the South appear to be paying off. For the second year in a row, AT&T took the top spot in the Southern region on J.D. Power and Associates' residential television service survey.

The South has been a heated market for AT&T. In addition to its Miss. market, AT&T has launched its U-Verse service in Baton Rouge, La. to battle not only Cox Communications, but smaller independent Fiber to the home operator EATEL. AT&T is also rolling out U-Verse to challenge incumbent cable operator Charter Communications in its Southern Louisiana market.

What AT&T's latest U-Verse video service launch shows is that telcos such as AT&T are not only embracing their video identities, but that they can be a new alternative threat to the cable industry's cushy video base.    

For more:
- see the Jackson, Miss. release here [1]
- Multichannel News has this article [2]

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