AT&T (NYSE: T) customers in Montville, Conn. will now have another option besides the cable company for video services as AT&T will bring its U-verse TV, broadband and voice service into parts of the town. The debut of the services in Montville is part of the service provider's expansion of AT&T U-verse services throughout Connecticut.
Connecticut is the latest state to get U-verse service following new service deployments in Decatur, Ala., Austin, Texas, and Dunwoody, Ga.
Being an integrated wireless wireline service provider, one of the attractions that AT&T continues to tout about U-verse is that U-verse customers can bundle their wireline voice, TV, broadband, and wireless services. AT&T reported in its Q3 earnings that more than three-quarters of U-verse TV subscribers have triple- or quad-play contracts.
However, not everything was pretty in AT&T's U-verse. Late last week, the service provider announced that it would no longer be able to deliver HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Cooking Channel and GAC, which are all supplied by Scripps Networks.
At issue was what AT&T was paying Scripps to carry these lifestyle programs in its U-verse TV lineup. The service provider felt as though it was being unfairly treated by the programming company--a common battle that's been fought between service providers and content providers.
However, late Sunday night AT&T announced that it reached a new distribution agreement with Scripps that will enable it to continue delivering various lifestyle network channels.
Scripps is not the only programming company AT&T has fought with recently. Previously, AT&T disconnected the Hallmark channel and the Hallmark Movie Channel after it could not finalize carriage terms with Hallmark Channels.
For more:
- see the Montville release
- see the Scripps release
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