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U-verse serves up stiff competition for region's cable customers Etan Horowitz Orlando Sentinel March 14, 2009 It's been three months since AT&T launched its U-verse TV and Internet service in Central Florida, so it's a good time to examine how serious competition for our home entertainment dollars has changed the landscape. Before we delve into that, a word about availability. AT&T has consistently refused to say where U-verse is available because of competitive reasons. "We're turning up new areas as quickly as we can, and we cannot provide specifics as our cable competitors would love for us to say exactly when and where we plan to launch," said AT&T spokeswoman Gretchen Schultz. That may be true, but potential customers would also love to know where U-verse is available, and AT&T runs the risk of those customers losing interest if they continue to call in and be told the service isn't available. Since AT&T won't provide U-verse's footprint, I created an online map on my blog and invited readers who can get U-verse to tell us where they live. So far we know that U-verse is available in parts of Hunter's Creek, east Orange County, Azalea Park, Conway, College Park, Oviedo, Winter Springs, Sanford and Lake Mary. To see the map, go to OrlandoSentinel.com/Uversemap Schultz did say the number of households capable of receiving U-verse has more than doubled since launch. U-verse will only be available in areas that can receive AT&T land-line service, which includes parts of Orange, Seminole, Brevard and Volusia counties. Representatives of both Bright House and U-verse said they welcome the competition because it will ultimately benefit the customers. And although neither side would reveal what it has done to respond to the competition, there have been a lot of positive developments, including: •Bright House finally adds Fox Sports Florida to its lineup. For more than a year, Bright House customers could not watch many Orlando Magic games because of a standoff between the cable company and Fox Sports Florida over the placement of the channel in Bright House's lineup. The negotiations stretched over two Magic seasons and despite protests from fans, the channel remained unavailable. Then, a few weeks after U-verse launched (with Fox Sports Florida), a deal was struck to bring the channel to Bright House. There's no way to know exactly what finally caused this to happen, but the threat of losing customers to a new competitor couldn't have hurt. It will be interesting to see how the next dispute like this plays out. •More high-definition channels. When U-verse launched, it offered 92 HD channels while Bright House offered 37. Since then, U-verse has added 11 more for a total of 103 and Bright House has added 11 more for a total of 48. Although Bright House has half as many HD channels as U-verse, the company promises to reach 100 HD channels by the end of the year. •Bright House adds more on-demand shows and movies. In the past few months, Bright House has added more on-demand movies and TV shows. This week, the company announced that you can now watch full episodes of prime-time shows from NBC, CBS, FX and other networks for free. •More promotions and specials to win your business. When you threaten to cancel your service with a company that's the only game in town, that company doesn't have as much incentive to try and change your mind. But when there's another company you can go to, things change. A colleague told me that when he called Bright House to cancel his digital phone service because the rate had gone up, the representative offered to give him the rate he had been paying for an additional year. So he stuck with Bright House. Although U-verse is not yet offering Internet phone service, they will soon, so perhaps the offer was recognition of that. U-verse is offering new customers a $200 rebate as well as free high-definition service (it normally costs $10 a month) for one year. Bottom line: you should take a "what are you going to do for me" attitude with these companies when you are thinking of dropping one for the other. The same goes for satellite-TV providers. Sadly, though, the increased competition hasn't lowered prices. In fact, both providers have raised their rates. The Bright House increases, which went into effect earlier this month, increased standard cable service from $52.99 to $55.49 a month. The bills for digital-cable subscribers rose from $59.99 to $63.49. In February, U-verse increased the monthly fee for having service on additional TVs from $5 to $7 and raised the rates on several other plans by $5 a month. For those of you hoping for a price war, keep on dreaming. ---------------- Etan Horowitz can be reached at [email protected] or 407-420-5447. To read his technology blog, visit OrlandoSentinel.com/techblog. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
