Tv Schedule

Though AT&T Broadband is launching its first interactive TV venture using WorldGate Communication's technology, that won't be the only item on AT&T's interactive menu.

Richard Fickle, AT&T's SVP-ITV, says interactive TV tests with Liberate Technologies and Microsoft remain on schedule.

AT&T expects to launch its ITV service with Liberate later this year, and advanced interactive TV tests with Microsoft should get under way beginning early next year, he says.

AT&T's decision to launch first with WorldGate raised questions about the state of the operator's relationship with other interactive players.

A spokesman for AT&T dismissed the notion that the WorldGate deal is, in any way, designed to nudge Liberate and Microsoft into high gear, also saying tests are on time for deployment.

"The WorldGate deal has been in the works for several months," she says. "This isn't meant, in any way, to push Liberate or Microsoft. Those tests are separate and on schedule."

AT&T has been offering all its digital customers in Waterloo, Iowa, the WorldGate service for several weeks. The MSO will soon roll out the service in its Tacoma, Wash., and Cedar Falls, Iowa, systems.

No other rollouts are planned, but executives with both companies say future deployments are possible next year.

The deal with WorldGate, first hinted at by AT&T Broadband CEO Dan Somers last summer during the CTAM Conference in Boston, is its third interactive tactic.

In addition to its WorldGate deployment on the DCT-2000 set-top boxes, AT&T is planning interactivity on DCT-5000 set-tops with Liberate and Microsoft deployments. Plus AT&T is rolling out video on demand technology with Diva in its Atlanta market this year with future deployments are expected in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Pittsburgh in 2001.

"This is just the third prong in our interactive strategy," Somers says.

All of AT&T's digital customers in Waterloo are receiving the WorldGate service for free. Although Fickle declined to say how many customers now get the WorldGate service, he says all the customers were hooked up to the free tier within a 10-day period.

He notes that the WorldGate technology didn't require a truck roll to deploy, which makes it easier and less expensive to install.

For those customers who want more than customized content and the ability to hyperlink to Internet Web sites, customers can pay $4.95 for e-mail services or $12.95 for e-mail and Internet access at speeds of 128K.

Current AT&T customers taking the WorldGate service are also getting a glimpse of a guide most AT&T customers will never see. AT&T is using the TV Gateway guide until Gemstar-TV Guide International's guide can be integrated with the service. AT&T has pledged all its customers to TV Guide's interactive guide service, but Fickle says AT&T wanted to get the WorldGate service deployed sooner rather than later. The TV Gateway guide will be switched out for the TV Guide version early next year, he says.

It's unclear whether the WorldGate service will be available on the DCT-5000 boxes, Fickle says. A more likely scenario will be the ability to offer different services using different boxes.

Just as analog and digital boxes are used on different TV sets in many homes, he envisions the day when DCT-2000 boxes and DCT-5000 set-tops are also deployed in the same homes on separate sets. Each box will offer a different set of services.

"By working with WorldGate to offer enhancements to our video product, including e-mail, interactive video content and e-commerce applications, we will give our customers convenient access to interactivity through a medium they are already comfortable with -- the television -- and with options available at the simple touch of a button," Somers says. "We want to stake our claim, with customers and business partners, as a leading innovator of advanced video products."

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COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group

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